TFIE BURLINGAME BUBBLE.
MHE Burlingame bubble would seem to have burst. It is
just thirteen months since the Chinese Mission, nominally headed by Mr. Burlingame, but really controlled, we imagine, by "Chin Tajen and Sun Tajen, Ministers with consulting and advisory powers," was entertained in New York, and since- we endeavoured to show that its despatch was in vulgar Eng- lish a "dodge," intended to impose a fallacy upon the world. The Chinese were just then in one of their periodic fits of sulkiness with the foreigners, fits which have, we are bound to acknowledge, very considerable justification. They wanted to get rid of the treaties, to be able to treat Europeans in China as subjects, to remedy a genuine grievance, the right claimed by Europeans under certain circumstances of breaking their Custom-House rules, and generally to be treated with more consideration. Finding it impossible to obtain these wishes by force, half awaking, indeed, to the fact that Europe was too strong for them, they hit on, or were advised to adopt, a very astute device, which they calculated would greatly impress the European Powers. They would make it appear that the newest and strongest of all the powers was decidedly opposed to the European pressure exercised upon Pekin, so opposed as to be willing to remonstrate as against a grievance. They selected, therefore, an American diplomatist of some ability and much experience as their nominal Envoy, placing, of course, two trusted Chinese by his side to observe his proceedings, and sent him first of all to America, to make a special treaty with the United States. The object of this treaty, as shortly described in speeches, was to "throw open China" to Americans, provided they took the initiative in waiving the special privileges accorded to Europeans. They were, in fact, to give up the "capitulations," as we call them in Turkey, or right to claim justice from their own Consuls, and to be allowed to make railways and telegraphs and "lines" for internal navigation in return. The men of the Eastern States were exceedingly amused and a little impressed with the Mission, and they are besides pene- trated with the perfectly just idea that there is a special relation between the Union and China arising out of geogra- phical and other circumstances, which may hereafter produce very great results. They, therefore, gave Mr. Burlingame a "splendid reception," said many very pleasant and a few
very ridiculous things in his honour, urged the Senate to accept the new Treaty, and generally showed the disposition which they themselves describe as "friendly." The Treaty was accepted, there were grand messages sent to China, there was much writing about the natural relations of Cali- fornia to her " next-door neighbours," and Mr. Burlin- game went his way to Europe rejoicing, for his grand end had been attained. This end wal not to make this or that treaty, but to create throughout Europe an impression that America had assumed a special position towards China, that the Union intended to protect the Government of Pekin, in
the sort of way in which it protects Spanish-America,- and that the Cabinets in urging their claims on the Regent Kung ran the risk of offending American susceptibilities. The Foreign Secretaries of Europe, however, who did not quite like this violation of the tradition that international law does not prevail East of Suez, and did not see their way to admitting China into the "comity of nations," were very cool about new treaties, were inclined to think, indeed, that old treaties had better be more carefully observed before new ones were signed, and pooh-poohed
Mr. Burlingame rather decidedly. He was treated, of course, with all the respect due to his character, and in Paris especially his Chinese confreres were received as well as visitors with plenty of money, sufficient rank, and no particular pre- judices about anything are pretty sure to be. Mr. Burlingame was very happy, and lived with a splendour worthy of his mission, and devised, it is said, many very gigantic and a few very sensible plans for developing the resources of the Empire, to its profit, and that of barbarians with money to invest at interest. The Mission, however, did not get on very fast. No Court conceded anything to it except courtesy and a fair hear- ing; there was no readiness to give up the capitulations, and great indisposition to confuse the politics of the United States with those of the two middle-aged ladies who, with Prince Kung, direct the foreign policy of China. The new Treaties hung fire, but still there was the one concluded with Washington, and that of itself was a coup which, in Mr. Burlingame's eyes, quite justified all the expense attendant on Mr. Burlingame's mission, however considerable it might have been.
Meanwhile, the Washington Treaty got back to Pekin to be ratified, and was received there with a somewhat unexpected amount of opposition. Perhaps Mr. Burlingame, in the gene- rosity of his nature, had over-estimated the liberalism of his friends in Pekin, as he once over-estimated the political prospects of General Fremont, whom he described in a speech in Paris as "waving the banner of our common country from the peaks of the Rocky Mountains in the face of the rising sun ;" perhaps the Chinese Cabinet were not quite satisfied with the effect of their diplomacy in relieving them of their foreign incubus ; or perhaps they were attacked with one of those fits of ultra- Conservatism which affect them whenever they think they see signs that the European pressure is becoming relaxed. Any- how, they discussed and discussed, and in the course of the discussions it came out, to the intense amusement of all the " Sinologues "—the people who know Chinese, and think, therefore, that they only can by possibility know China—that the Regency had not given Mr. Burlingame credentials to treat with Washington on equal terms, but had authorized him to visit certain tributary peoples, and make arrange- ments between them and their Suzerain in Pekin. The incident, if true, is very characteristic alike of the Chinese, who even while drawing up their Envoy's creden- tials were imposing on him, and on the Powers to whom they accredited him, and of Mr. Burlingame, who, of course, had not an idea what his credentials contained, but it is of no other moment. The Chinese could have accepted the treaty if they liked, but they did not like, and at last they threw over their own Ambassador—just as they threw over Captain Osborn and Mr. Lay—and refused to ratify the agree- ment fortuulizing their own proposals. At the same time, the American Minister in Pekin, Mr. Ross Browne, having made himself acquainted with affairs, announced himself pleased with the refusal, declared the capitulations necessary, and stated, as the telegrams say, that "British policy," by which ha means the policy of abstinence from force, had failed. Both Washington and Pekin therefore repudiate the policy which was to have "commenced a new era in the inter- course between China and the world," the astute device for making everybody think that Prince Kung and Mr. Seward were in perfect accord has failed, the bubble has exploded, and Mr. Burlingame is "planted there" in Paris, a Chinese envoy whose treaties China will not ratify, an outside Ame- rican diplomatist whose policy is pronounced by the insiders to be all wrong. There is no special affiance between
Washington and Pekin, there is no special amity even ; above all, there is no Protectorate, and Chinese affairs are to be treated as if Fenians could not menace raids on Montreal, and as if Mr. Clay were not dear to the soul of the Russian Czar.
The result is not pleasant to us only because it fulfils our predictions, but because any other would have been produc- tive of infinite mischief. Falsehood never makes a good basis for negotiation, and the assertion that China ought to be admitted into "the comity of nations" involved a falsehood. Nobody recognizes more fully than ourselves that China is in many respects a civilized empire ; that it has, for instance, a regular and extremely powerful Government, which is obeyed much more readily than it suits all foreigners to acknowledge ; that we ought, therefore, to deal with the Emperor, and not with his satraps ; and that to take redress by force from the Mandarins before we have asked for it from the Court is most unjust and oppressive. But the existence of a regular govern- ment is not all that is needful to peaceful negotiation on a footing of equality. A Government must be prepared, if it asks for the protection of international law, to observe international obligations, to keep its treaties, for example, to listen to complaints, to grant redress for injuries, to abstain carefully from insult, and even from disrespect. The Chinese Monarchy is not yet prepared to do any of these things, not ready to act frankly when provoked or honestly when complaining, and Europe is therefore driven to maintain for a time the principle it has hitherto maintained in all its Asiatic and African dealings, and indeed in all dealings with minor European Powers, namely, that the six Powers, as guardians of the peace of the world, and charged with its police, are bound to do justice, but are their own interpreters of the code by which justice is to be carried out. Of course that position binds them to restrain their own subjects most severely, to see that the defendants whom they summon before their bar suffer no wrong, any more than the plaintiffs who appeal to them, but the position itself is one from which they cannot as yet depart. China as yet must be content to receive orders, not merely to consider requests, and our duty is to see that the orders are just, and for the belle& of China, not merely to shrink from giving them. That upon certain points Europe is unjust in its treatment of China we do not deny or even question. It is most unjust to bombard towns as we do, when we could, without bombarding, compel the central Government to give us full redress. It is most unjust to be so slack in punishing infractions of the Chinese revenue law. It is most unjust to force railways and telegraphs on a nation who do not wish for them, on the assumption that the Mandarins do not represent the people, while if the Mandarins, do wrong it is upon these people that we fire. But we are bound to remedy these injustices, not to give up the power which alone enables us to remedy them, and to compel the Chinese to do their share in remedying them too. It is for us, for example, to suppress smuggling, but also it is for us to say that the Chinese must suppress the excuse for smuggling,—the transit duties which, in defiance of treaties, the Mandarins are always endeavouring to impose.
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