The Englishman in China During the Victorian Era, Vol. 1 (of 2) / As Illustrated in the Career of Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., D.C.L., Many Years Consul and Minister in China and Japan

by Alexander Michie

VIII. INFLUENCE OF THESE EVENTS ON PROGRESS OF DIPLOMACY.

Inadequacy of foreign diplomacy—Absence of sovereign—Allies committed to protection of China—Coercion impossible—Large outlook of Mr Bruce—The provincial versus imperial administration—Attempt to force Central Government to coerce provincial—Contemptuous attitude of Chinese Ministers—Sir F. Bruce's despair—He clutches at various straws—General reaction of Chinese.

How did these various occurrences influence the progress of diplomatic relations with the Government? We have seen that diplomacy in Peking was a venture launched on imported capital, which, meeting with no indigenous support, was doomed from the first to feed upon itself. There was no dialect through which the foreign idea could translate itself to Chinese comprehension, no medium by which Chinese political conceptions could be made intelligible to the foreigner. When Gordon could not get his meaning filtered through an interpreter, he called for a dictionary and put his finger on the word "idiotcy"—and the most orthodox interpreting could not get much beyond this point in establishing a common currency for the interchange of national ideas. The initial difficulty in imposing foreign forms, foreign terms, foreign procedure—of revolutionising at a stroke a system of administration petrified by ancient usage—would have existed even if the statesmen of China had been sincere converts to the innovation. The contrary was, of course, the case: they were as much opposed to the new relations as they had been to the military invasion itself. No help, therefore, was to be expected from the Chinese side in creating a workable scheme of international intercourse. They desired nothing of that kind, their ambition soaring no higher than the creation of a buffer against which external impulsion might expend its force. That buffer was the Tsungli-Yamên. Foreign diplomacy, therefore, if it were to subsist at all, must subsist on its own resources, the foundation of which was force. The force that brought foreigners to Peking must, either in esse or in posse, for an indefinite time keep them there and render them efficient. Force no doubt would have enabled the foreign Ministers to bring about even those structural changes in the Chinese system which were necessary to clear the ground for the operation of their diplomacy. But if there was one thing more than another of which Western Governments were determined to convince themselves, it was that the law of force was finally abrogated in China; that on a certain day at a certain hour, coincident with the signing (by force) of a sheet of paper, the spirit of hostility had departed from the Chinese mind; and that the law of love and reason was, without preamble, to take the place of that which had brought about the new relations. Whether believed in or not, this curious paradox was to be the rule of all future action.

The game that opens with the "king" off the board, and is afterwards continued with the "queen" protected, is an obviously impossible one. The foreign Ministers had to do with a Government of irresponsibility, and instead of teaching its members from the outset to recognise their new obligations—training them as children, which as regards foreign matters they really were—the foreign Ministers began by treating the Chinese Government rather as an infant too delicate for discipline, with the familiar results of such treatment. The diplomats betrayed so much anxiety to lure the sovereign back to his palace, that the Chinese Ministers soon learned to exploit this feeling for their own ends. That such and such a concession "would have a good effect at Jêho" was inducement enough to the foreign representatives to waive one point after another in the transaction of public business. When the emperor died, after six months of this régime of indulgence, the position was changed materially for the worse,—for the diplomats had now a veritable infant on their hands, with a female regent "behind the curtain." No prospect thenceforth of even the initial formality of delivering letters of credence until the child should grow up, by which time many things might happen. Thus the European scheme of diplomacy, which was to have been imposed bodily on the Court of Peking, stumbled heavily on the threshold, and never recovered itself. But the Chinese recovered. Their fear of the "fierce barbarians" disappeared as they saw them throw away their weapons, and the process was resumed by which the fruits of the war and of the treaties of peace were gradually nibbled away.

And of course the whole idea of coercing the Imperial Government, even had it ever been entertained, was openly reduced to nullity when the foreign Powers interfered for the suppression of the rebellion. The Allies could not knock down with one hand what they were propping up with the other, and thus the Imperial Government not only enjoyed immunity, but knew that they possessed it,—that their late conquerors were now fully committed to the upholding of the integrity of China and the maintenance of the dynasty. Any liberties might consequently be taken: remonstrances from the foreigners would be loud in proportion to their hollowness, but the barbarians could not attack a citadel full of their own hostages.

Although remoteness from the scene of action and imperfect acquaintance with local requirements were apt to invalidate his conclusions on points of detail, and to compel him occasionally to follow where he might have been expected to guide the action of his subordinate executive, yet whenever Sir Frederick Bruce delivered his mind on the position of China and her foreign relations as a whole, his views were large, luminous, and statesmanlike. He foresaw from the first what the degradation of the Chinese Government must inevitably lead to. His outlook is revealed in a brief sentence in one of his earlier despatches: "The weakness of China rather than her strength is likely to create a fresh Eastern question in these seas." There need be little doubt that that idea dominated his Chinese diplomacy. Severity, or even strictness, may well have seemed on the face of the matter inconsistent with the pious wish to strengthen China, yet we now know that what she then most needed was to be braced up to the fulfilment of her obligations as a necessity of her own wellbeing.

The field of diplomacy in the orthodox sense being closed, and there being no foreign interests in Peking, the subject-matter for the Ministers' activity was furnished entirely from the trading-ports. Of these there were fifteen open in 1861. The kind of questions which arose may be generally defined as claims arising out of breaches of treaty by provincial officials, for which redress was sought from the Central Government. This was a reversal of Chinese methods, which, even had the Government been well disposed, would not have been easy to effect; and as the Government was hostile, difficulty became impossibility. The British Minister after a year's trial began to realise the magnitude of his Sisyphean task. "In a country like China," he wrote to the Foreign Office in July 1862, "where the principles of administration differ entirely from those practised by us, the conclusion of a treaty is the commencement, not the termination, of difficulties."

To a consul he wrote at the same time: "The important result to be gained by the establishment of direct relations with the Government of Peking is the avoidance of local acts of violence.... Time will elapse before the new system will work smoothly and efficiently, ... but you must not go beyond pacific efforts to remedy the abuses complained of." A few months later, in a general circular to consuls, he thus carefully recapitulated the instruction:—

The object to be attained is that of forcing the local officials to observe the treaty ... through the pressure brought to bear upon them by the Peking Government, and thus escape from the false position in which we have hitherto been placed of coercing the local authorities and people, and thus doing the work of the Imperial Government. To initiate this new system of relations is a task which can only be effected gradually and patiently; but the attempt must be steadily and perseveringly made, in order that the Chinese Government may be forced to teach its people, &c.

And at the same time he summed up the situation to the Foreign Office in these words: "Our relations with China cannot be put upon a safe footing until the Imperial Government itself compels its local officers to observe treaties"—a matter in which the Central Government itself most needed compulsion!

But all this about "forcing" the local officials and "forcing" the Imperial Government, without using any force, recalls the ancient Chinese maxim of "ruling barbarians by misrule." The world rested securely enough on the tortoise, but what did the tortoise itself rest on? With grim satisfaction must the Chinese Ministers have watched the foreigners entering on a desert campaign where they would exhaust their strength without reaching the enemy. The warnings and threats which alone the Minister allowed himself to use to enforce his demands or his admonitions, as the case might be, were to the Chinese mere blank cartridge. Prince Kung, replying to one of those minatory despatches, "imagines that his Excellency uses this outspoken language for the purpose of stimulating the Chinese Government to activity. His Highness is sure that it is not his Excellency's desire to act in the manner indicated." And so on indefinitely. The impression made on the Chinese Government by the force of foreign diplomacy was likened by an American Minister twenty years afterwards to "boxing a feather-bed." The policy above described, inaugurated by Mr Bruce and followed consistently by the British Government, was pithily termed by Lord Salisbury, when in Opposition, as an "ideal policy" in pursuit of which the concrete interests of the country were allowed to lapse.

It would be tedious to trace in detail the process of disintegration of treaty rights which followed these interesting overtures. It will be more to the purpose to cite the British Minister's review of the results twelve months later in a despatch to Prince Kung. This despatch and the reply to it were deemed so important at the time that they were separately called for by the House of Commons, and were published as independent Blue Books (Nos. 6 and 8, 1864):—

Sir Frederick Bruce wished the Prince of Kung to understand that he had reason to be greatly dissatisfied

1. With the general disregard of treaty provisions manifested at the ports.

2. With the tone of the Government generally towards foreigners.

It is entirely due to the exertions of the Allied forces that Shanghai and Ningpo are not now in rebel possession. Had Shanghai fallen, the imperial authority would have received a blow from which it could never have recovered....

Sir F. Bruce did not look for any extraordinary demonstration of gratitude for these services, but he had hoped that the Central Government would at least have insisted on the faithful observance of the treaty at the ports. He had hoped also that it would have addressed itself with some increase of vigour to the organisation of a competent executive.

These expectations have not been realised. At several of the ports the treaty is daily broken in matters great and small; and the Central Government, if not unwilling, shows itself unable to enforce a better order of things. The orders sent by the Foreign Board, when Sir Frederick Bruce complains, are not carried out, either because the local authorities do not stand in awe of the Foreign Board or because they do not believe the Foreign Board issues them in earnest....

The Foreign Board has gone through the form of issuing instructions, but the causes of complaint remain as they were, either because the local authorities do not fear or because the Foreign Board does not care. Seeing that none of the authorities complained of have been punished or removed, that officials notoriously hostile to foreigners have been appointed to places in which they have increased opportunity of indulging in their anti-foreign tendencies, while officials of friendly disposition have been withdrawn, Sir Frederick Bruce is induced, however reluctantly, to infer that if the Imperial Government be not adverse to friendly intercourse, it is, at all events, indisposed to do what is necessary to teach the people and local authorities that China is sincerely desirous of friendly relations with foreign Powers....

It is for the Chinese Government to consider whether it will listen to these warnings, &c.

Prince Kung's Reply, 19th June 1863.

With reference to the proposition on which the British Minister's note insists, that the treaty should rank with the law, the Prince has to observe that the principle that the treaty is identical with the laws of the Imperial Government, and that breach of treaty is the same thing as violation of the law, is the principle on which the Government of China proceeds, and its only desire is that foreign nations should regard the treaty in the same light....

As regards the cases still undetermined in the provinces, the Prince hopes that the British Minister will refer to the record and inform him, case by case, of the particulars of each, and the Yamên will at once write to the Provincial Governments concerned to hurry them with the cases enumerated....

Sir Frederick Bruce's Reply, July 2, 1863.

Your Imperial Highness states in explicit terms that the Government of China recognises the treaties as the law of the empire in its relations with foreigners, and that breaches of treaty are considered violations of those laws. But the despatch of your Imperial Highness contains nothing to show that this principle will be carried out in practice. I stated instances in which the authorities, in spite of the remonstrances of her Majesty's consul, had deliberately set aside the letter of the treaty for no other object than to curtail the privileges of her Majesty's subjects. Your Imperial Highness in your reply does not allude to these cases, nor do you inform me that any steps have been taken to remedy these grievances or to prevent a repetition of such conduct. I am simply requested to send in a list of the grievances complained of; and I am informed that the local authorities will be urged to settle them with speed. Such a proposal is entirely unsatisfactory; for what reason have I to suppose that the instructions now to be sent by your Imperial Highness will be attended to, when I see that the orders which I am assured were given by your Imperial Highness for the redress of outrages such as ... have been disobeyed?

In these State Papers the relations present and prospective between China and the outer world are accurately represented. Putting aside local and temporary questions, the despatches might be dated 1873, 1883, or 1893, for the position remained substantially the same during the three decades.

The attitude of the British Minister we see to be one of hopeless pleading and vague admonition; of the Chinese Ministers, elastic resistance. One wonders how far, under the mask of dull decorum, the Chinese entered into the real humour of the situation: foreigners chafing impotently, but with their teeth drawn, occupying themselves largely with the preservation of China and the dynasty; urging reforms, military, financial, and administrative, while putting up with the non-fulfilment of the commonest obligations.

Sir F. Bruce was much too wise a man not to be perfectly conscious of the negative result of foreign diplomacy in Peking. His private letters, some of which were published by Mr Lay in 1864, are more emphatic on the point than his public despatches. He saw it was a case for desperate remedies, but unfortunately he had no remedy except such as aggravated the disease. Like a drowning man, Sir Frederick Bruce clutched at one straw, then another—first at the inspectorate of customs, then at the collective body of his colleagues—to redress the balance which lay so heavily against him. We see in the despatch of June 12, 1863, the inception of what became known as the "co-operative policy." That was an arrangement by which the cause of one foreigner was to be made the cause of all, so that the treaty Powers might present a solid front to the Chinese. Unfortunately such a policy bears no fruit, since half-a-dozen Powers with separate interests, and of varying tempers, can only unite in doing nothing. The co-operative policy, therefore, by tying the hands of all the Powers, rendered the Chinese more secure than ever from outside interference.

From Sir Frederick Bruce's despatches it may be gathered that the reason for the non-success of the Peking diplomacy was, that it was not founded on fact. It assumed that the Government of China was centralised instead of decentralised; that the administration of the empire hinged on the initiative of Peking, from which distant point the resident Ministers could protect their respective national interests throughout the empire. This hypothesis, which might have graced an academic debate, was acted upon as if it was a reality, and the struggle to make it so has absorbed the resources of diplomacy for forty years. The real fact, however, was quite otherwise. The distinctive character of Chinese Government is not autocracy, but democracy and provincial autonomy. The springs of action work from below, not from above, and to reverse this order of the ages was to convert a court of appeal into a court of first instance: to sue for a tradesman's debt before the Lord Chancellor, requiring the legal machinery to be first turned upside down. Diplomacy in China has thus been a disheartening effort to drive in a wedge by its thick end without adequate leverage. It is possible, indeed, that force might have accomplished even as much as that, but force was the one thing the use of which was proscribed.

The redress of grievances being sought not where it could have been exacted, at the point affected, but in the capital, the Central Government was called on to exercise over the provincial officials a kind of control which had never been exercised before. The provincial officials, relieved from the local pressure which they respected, easily evaded the novel and unconstitutional interference of the capital, and violated the treaties with an impunity unknown in the days before the admission of the foreign Ministers to Peking. The treaties, no doubt, had become the "law of the land" so far as a mere barbarian phrase could make them so, but a full-grown tree of Western legality could not so easily transplant itself to an alien and refractory soil. The argument from legality appealed, therefore, to the ear only. The practical conclusion to which Sir Frederick Bruce was led is very simply stated in two paragraphs of his letters to Prince Kung: "My object has been to seek redress through the Imperial Government, and to do away with the necessity of seeking redress by forcible demonstrations at the ports. But it is evident that the reluctance of your Imperial Highness to enter frankly into this policy renders my efforts ineffectual." "Either the Imperial Government is unwilling to use its influence to cause the treaties to be fairly carried out, or it has not the power to cause its orders to be obeyed." Sir Frederick would have hit still nearer the mark if he had omitted the "either," "or," and said simply the Imperial Government was both unwilling and unable.

Notwithstanding these definite views, the experiment of forcing a centralisation which would have been a revolution on the unintelligible Government of China had to be continued through many weary years that were to follow, during which time the rights conferred by treaty on foreigners fell more and more into abeyance.

The progress in that direction made in the two first years is thus summarised by Mr H. N. Lay, the first Inspector-General of Customs, on his return to China in 1863:—

When I left China the emperor's Government, under the pressure of necessity, and with the beneficial terror established by the Allied foray to Peking in 1860 fresh in their recollection, was in the best of moods, willing to be guided, grateful for help, and in return for that help prepared to do what was right by the foreigner. What did I find on my return? The face of things was entirely changed. There was the old insolent demeanour, the nonsensical language of exclusion, the open mockery of all treaties.... In short, all the ground gained by the treaty of 1858 had been frittered away, and we were thrust back into the position we occupied before the war,—one of helpless remonstrance and impotent menace; ... the labour of years lost through egregious mismanagement. The Foreign Board looked upon our European representatives as so many rois fainéants.... Prince Kung was no longer accessible.... He professed to be engaged with more important matters.

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[APPENDIX I.]
NOTE ON OUR PRESENT POSITION AND THE STATE OF OUR RELATIONS WITH CHINA, BY CONSUL ALCOCK, JANUARY 19, 1849.

Section I.

The lesson of the past is very legibly written in the history of our relations,—oppression in the Chinese, increased by submission in the English. Resistance of the latter followed by concession in the former may be read in every stage, and the influence of the late war, beyond the tangible effects embodied in the provisions of the treaties, has been limited very much to outward forms: there is reason to suspect that the policy of the Chinese has been masked, not changed.

The same arrogant and hostile spirit exists, and their policy is still to degrade foreigners in the eyes of the people, and to offer every obstacle which may with safety be interposed to any extended intercourse,—objects which they seek to carry out by various covert and indirect means. In this sense the letter of the treaty is often quoted, but any large interpretation can only be secured under a moral compulsion, as the least objectionable alternative. This may not, perhaps, be wholly owing to bad faith, for distrust and fear of foreigners probably influences the result. Hence all the principal advantages enjoyed under the treaty are only held by a species of personal tenure of precarious character, and a consul at one of the ports may lose more in a week than her Majesty's Government may find it easy to recover with costly and embarrassing efforts in a year. Our present relations consist in a never-ceasing struggle, under veiled appearances of amity; and the treaty extorted by force is generally sought to be eluded by cunning. They have no objection to the foreign trade as one of the elements of their own prosperity, though they much underrate its importance; but to make it wholly acceptable [to them], the former humiliating conditions are wanting.

The whole effort of the Chinese rulers seems to be limited to preserving peace as the first object, and, so far as may be compatible with this, to assimilate our present to our ancient position as the second.

From the general bearing of our relations in connection with the past and the future, the nature and extent of the disadvantages under which we labour may be easily deduced:—

1. Local insecurity to person and property at Canton.

2. Want of access to the first markets and of the means of pushing and verifying the consumption of our manufactures in the interior.

3. Ill-adjusted rates of duty on several important articles.

4. Want of reciprocity and equality in our political relations, and a certain inferiority in our position social and political.

By the first we are menaced with perpetual danger of fatal collision and interruption to our commerce, while our general position is at the same time prejudiced. By the second we are deprived of any large market for our goods, and pay dearer for native produce. By the third the Straits, Indian, and the native carrying trade are all impeded in their growth and dwarfed in their proportions; and by the fourth insuperable difficulties in remedying abuses or amending our relations are encountered, our only means of action being upon Canton and its governor, acting as an imperial commissioner.

The full and rapid development of our commerce, a new and profitable field for our manufactures, and a better guarantee for the maintenance of our friendly relations, are the chief advantages to be sought in the removal of these disabilities.

The practicability of maintaining our relations on their present unsatisfactory footing in the south must be very doubtful, nor is there much hope that any of the essential advantages above specified may be gained incidentally in the natural progress of time, and still less that the grounds of alarm should of themselves disappear. The causes of all that is bad in our position spring from too deep a source, and may be traced too far back, to admit of any such hope: a rooted conviction in the minds of a whole population, derived from traditional knowledge of the humiliating and derogatory position voluntarily accepted by foreigners, cannot be effaced by a treaty, or even a short successful war which passed over the city that was the offending cause almost harmless. How far it may be possible to convert popular contempt and dislike into respect and fear, we cannot judge from experience: hitherto, in the steps taken to that end, either too much or too little has been attempted.

There are practical difficulties of a peculiar and altogether local character [it is obvious] to any immediate amelioration of our position at Canton which do not exist elsewhere. Setting aside these considerations, it will be found that all that is most valuable and important in the advantages to be desired are of a nature to be granted by the sole exercise of the emperor's will: greater freedom of access, the modification of half-a-dozen items in the tariff, even the exchange of envoys between the two Courts, if this were deemed expedient, are all matters to be decided by a stroke of the vermilion pencil. No hostile populations interpose a practical negative to concessions such as these. The grounds upon which we may claim the revisal of some of the provisions of existing treaties are derived from the well-established conditions of all permanent relations of a friendly and commercial character between sovereign States in the civilised world.

We may claim of right a modification of the basis of our relations on the injury resulting to our interests from the bad faith or impuissance (it matters little which) of the Chinese Government in giving execution to the treaties in force. We may insist upon prejudicial limits being abolished, since they have plainly failed in their ostensible object to secure freedom from molestation or injury which was the condition of their acceptance.

If it be the traditional policy of the Tartar dynasty to keep foreigners at the outer confines of the empire and in a degrading position, it may with better justice be the policy of Great Britain to obtain a direct action upon their centre, and freedom from idle and vexatious restrictions. The right of a nation to interdict intercourse and commerce, and therefore to determine upon what conditions it shall exist, is but an imperfect right, and subject to such modifications as the rights of other nations to the use of innocent objects of utility dictate; and the refusal of a common right is an abuse of the sovereign power, and an injury to be resisted.

China, however disposed its rulers may be to deny the fact, is one of a community of nations with common rights and obligations, and any claim to exemption from the recognised terms of national intercourse is inadmissible in the interest of all other countries. To admit such a right of exemption would be to allow the arrogated superiority in power and civilisation, and to pamper the hostile conceit of her people.

So long as the sovereign States of Europe will permit so obvious an inference it cannot be matter of surprise, and scarcely subject of reproach, to the Chinese, that they should be so ready to assert and so pertinacious in acting upon it.

But even if exclusion from the territories, from all trade and intercourse, were an absolute right in the first instance, the Chinese have forfeited all claim to its exercise—first, by voluntarily entering into relations political and commercial in ages past with other States and people, by exchange of embassies, by opening their ports and territories and encouraging trade; and secondly, by aggressive wars and invasion of the territory of Europe by the Tartar and Mongolian races who have ruled the country.

China preserves her undoubted right of self-preservation as a political society and an empire, but this does not involve the incidental right of interdicting intercourse, because her own history shows that danger does not necessarily follow unlimited access, since as late as the seventeenth century such free communication existed with foreigners; and secondly, because the right of decision must be shared by the interdicted party.

Section II.

It is not enough, however, to determine the abstract principles upon which a policy may be founded—that which is just may not always be most expedient, and if both the one and the other, it may not be practicable.

The chief difficulties to be encountered in any attempt to place our relations on an improved basis may be traced to three principal sources:—

• The Canton popular traditions and hostility.
• The treaties in force.
• The contraband trade in opium.

The characteristic features of our position at Canton and their origin are too well known to require illustration. To our political relations before the war, and the humble and in every way derogatory attitude assumed towards the Chinese, is clearly to be traced their present insolence, assumed superiority, and hostility on finding it questioned.

The principle of narrow boundaries and restricted limits confirmed by the Treaty of Nanking virtually sanctioned the tradition of the past, which no mere verbal assertion of equality thus practically contradicted can modify. The repudiation of this principle and the establishment of a different footing seem to be essential to our political equality, which would form the best foundation of an improved social and commercial position, most especially in the south. Were our chief political relations with the Chinese Government not centred at Canton, it is very evident that that port would lose much of the importance which now attaches to the sayings and doings of its turbulent mob and impracticable authorities. Were the centre of our political action anywhere else, the local difficulties, troublesome as they are, must soon merge into comparative insignificance, and such a measure as this would seem an easier task to accomplish than to change the habits and the prejudices of a whole population.

If we turn from Canton and its unsatisfactory history of oriental insolence and presumption on the one side, and undue submission to their exigencies on the other, and consider the exemption from all such characteristics at Shanghai, the respective influences of the treaties and of local circumstances may be deduced by a comparison of the two chief ports.

The various concurring circumstances terminating in the Tsingpu outrage, which threatened to approximate the position of the British at Shanghai to that occupied at Canton, have been detailed in the correspondence of the period. The position was seriously affected by the comparative immunity of whole villages participating in the murders at Canton in the previous year, by the atrocious features of the crime itself, and by the assumed necessity of the consul's inaction pending a reference to her Majesty's plenipotentiary, occupying several weeks.

Prompt redress was imperiously demanded by the interests at stake and the sinister aspect of affairs, and to enforce this coercive means were employed, leaving nothing to be desired.

The most important of the results obtained was the demonstration of a power to shift the centre of action from a port where no progress could be made to a vulnerable point nearer to Peking where immediate attention could be commanded, and this was supplied by the mission to Nanking.

From these two circumstances—the serious deterioration of our position, and the prompt and efficacious remedy provided—an important conclusion may be drawn as to our means of effecting any required change in our relations.

In an empire vast in area as China, with an overflowing population, it is no slight advantage to be enabled, without a single battle, to invest and vigorously blockade the capital; and this it is in our power to effect by a small squadron at the mouth of the Grand Canal in the early spring, when Peking is dependent for its supplies for the year on the arrival of the grain and tribute junks by that channel. A more effective means of coercion this than the destruction of twenty cities on the confines of the Chinese territory or on the coast. With a starving Court and population around him, flight or concession appears to be the emperor's only alternatives.

The facility and the certainty with which this object may be attained are important considerations. The insurmountable obstacles to the advance of a European army into the interior are rendered nugatory and altogether unimportant by the knowledge of this highroad to the heart of the empire.

The maintenance of our present relations is probably in no slight degree due to the secret consciousness of their weakness at this point.

In any future policy that may be adopted, therefore, these facts and views are calculated to supersede the necessity for active hostilities, and must tend to avert from a peaceful and industrious population all the worst calamities of war, at the same time that they free her Majesty's Government from the embarrassment of a costly and protracted war in prospectu.

A simple and ready resource for commanding attention to any just demands is indeed invaluable in China, and without it there is every reason to believe the Chinese rulers would still be the most impracticable of Orientals. With such a power, no insuperable obstacles exist to the satisfactory solution of difficulties without either costly effort or interruption to the trade of the five ports; and it was the long-matured conviction of our powerful action, by means of a command over the necessary supplies for Peking, that dictated the course followed in the Tsingpu affair.

The Chinese view of the opium trade and our agency in it forms perhaps the chief obstacle to our taking that high ground with the rulers, and good position with the people, which the extension of our commercial interests demands. Let us look, then, to this opium traffic and the influence it actually exercises upon our position in China.

It is no question here whether opium should be classed in the category of medicines, stimuli, or fatal poisons; the Chinese have decided that for themselves, and regard it only as a poison, and the British as the great producers, carriers, and sellers of the drug, to our own great profit and their undoubted impoverishment and ruin. Nor does their conviction end here: they believe to maintain this traffic we made war and dictated a humiliating peace, and that we are prepared to do so again, if they ventured on any interference to its prejudice.

These opinions may be false or true in their foundation, that is not the question, but, What is the influence they are calculated to exercise? Hostility and distrust can alone be traced to this source. No other feelings flow from it, and the consequences will meet us at every turn of our negotiations, in our daily intercourse, and every changing phase of our relations. As it overshadows with a sinister influence the whole field of our political action, so must it be seriously taken into account and calculated upon as an adverse element in all we attempt in China.

Accepted as un fait accompli, the best means of neutralising and counteracting its bad effects are alone to be considered, since the enormous capital, large revenue, and inseparable connection of our legitimate trade with opium, as a means of laying down funds in China, involved in the traffic, precludes all idea of its cessation or removal.

The effective protection lent to the chief opium-dealers, in their capacity of British merchants, resident at the ports under the provisions of the treaty, and the manifest inability of the Chinese either to bring the legal proof we should require against these principals, or of attacking by force their agents in the glaring infraction of the Chinese laws, at the opium stations, no doubt flings an air of insincerity over all our protestations of non-intervention, while there is mockery in the invitation to assail large fleets of heavily-armed European vessels. Even if the Chinese for a single moment believed in the honesty of our declarations, they know the utter futility of any means of attack they possess against such superior force as the opium fleets present. This is the view taken by the Chinese, who, though they do not confess their own weakness, do not disguise or deny it to themselves.

The obstacles which these opinions create and fling in our path whenever advantages are sought at the hands of the Chinese in furtherance of our national interests are to be overcome before any progress can be made. There are three modes of dealing with them:—

1. By arguments to prove the fallacy of their assumption that we were either the original cause of this traffic, or have now the power to put an end to it, or finally, that it is an unmixed evil.

2. By a modification in the demands we should, without this consideration, be entitled to insist upon.

3. By a mixture of kindness and decision, of instruction and intimidation, and, in last resort, by coercion for the attainment of all just and necessary concessions.

And as we should naturally begin with the first, and may eventually find ourselves compelled to resort to the last, so no doubt it will be expedient many times to combine all the different methods of overcoming the active or inert resistance we encounter in the Chinese rulers.

As to any remedy to be applied to the evils of the opium trade, there seems to be none open to either Government but its legalisation, which would strip it of its contraband character, and remove from the emperor the open reproach to his authority, while it might be made to yield a large revenue to his treasury.

If on a question of national policy or morality, this measure, as the lesser of two evils, is declined, there seems to be no help for the mischief which must accrue to us from being the chief agents in the traffic. But it is useless to disguise from ourselves the injurious influence it will unfailingly exercise upon our political action, when any rights on our part are weighed, and it is this which may entail the necessity of our flinging the weight of the sword into the opposite scale—sheathed it may be, but not the less significant and compulsory in its effect.

The opium grief and the Canton hostility thus work together and dovetail into each other to our manifest prejudice, that port continuing to enjoy its old privilege of being the great exponent and centre of both. There we meet in their least veiled form the national adverseness to foreigners concentrated and localised—the conviction of injury and loss at our hands from opium, heightened into asperity and bitterness by the arrogance of their tempers and the consciousness of their weakness.

In no other port does it seem likely the same overt expression and concentration of adverse feelings will ever be experienced. It would appear the more important, therefore, to modify the virulent form they assume at Canton, and remove the bad precedent and example incessantly furnished by the Cantonese.

The entrance into the city is obviously a question of principle, not of any direct practical advantage in a commercial sense. The freedom from annoyance, and security to property, are more truly so, and of these two the latter, by far the most essential and important to our interests, seems only to require more storage room for goods, away from a dense Chinese suburb which renders insurance from risk of fire impossible, and entails upon our merchants all the additional danger of fraud in the Chinese warehouse-keepers, who are of necessity the custodians of our goods.

We cannot hope that any effort of ours or of the emperor will suffice to change at once the character and habits of a people, or even of the population of a city. But the last war has shown that with us it rests to bring at any time the pretensions of the Chinese rulers down to a nearer level with their military power; and if they cannot from inherent weakness do all that may be desirable, neither are they in a position to refuse any concession, clearly at their option to grant, and such are these which it would seem most important to Great Britain to secure: the nature of our demands and the circumstances under which they shall be preferred are considerations of policy and expediency. But the real question, and by far the most important, it will be obvious, is rather what it may be wise to demand, than what it may be possible to obtain. The danger of collision between the rival civilisations of the East and West has long been foreseen, instinctively felt by the Chinese, and more clearly discerned by Europeans in the result of the late war; and the larger commercial interests growing up under, and in spite of, the present system of restrictions, has only tended, by partially extending the points of contact without placing our relations on a plain basis of reciprocity and equality, to increase the chances. It can only be hoped that the gradual introduction of European arts and ideas and their fructification may in some degree fuse and harmonise the discordant elements before the course of events which otherwise tend to precipitate a violent and disastrous collision are beyond our control. To such a peaceful and beneficial termination of the difficulties which unavoidably beset our relations with China, the efforts of all Western Powers should in the common interest be directed.

These considerations must act as the most powerful checks to any initiative measures of a large and comprehensive character for the improvement of our position and the more rapid development of our commerce.

In this point of view the two greatest obstacles to any advance are the large commercial interests and national revenue at stake, and the danger of being followed by the envoys of other foreign Powers who, having no such great interests to jeopardise, are without this beneficial and most needful check, and may therefore be induced to repeat at a semi-barbarian Court the intrigues and counter-projects for the destruction of our influence and the injury of our trade in the East which are at work in our own times in every capital in Europe, as formerly in India and the Eastern Archipelago.

Russia, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, and America, with their several jealousies and united rivalry with England, their missionary enterprises or commercial and political schemes clashing in their aim and development, are all capable of creating such turmoil, strife, and disturbance throughout the empire, if free access to the Court and the provinces were insisted upon by Great Britain, as could only end in the ejection of Europeans from China as formerly from Japan, or an intestine war in which European power would probably be involved on opposite sides, and to their mutual destruction as States with commercial interests in the country. These, again, might lead to attempts at territorial possession, suggested in the first instance, as in India, in self-defence, and afterwards continued from necessity. With Russia spreading her gigantic arms to the north and east, Great Britain on the south and west, Spain, Holland, and Portugal with their colonies in the Chinese and Indian seas, a struggle for superiority on the soil of China for exclusive advantages or predominant influence might be centred in Peking and embroil the whole of Europe in hostile relations. The same objection applies to all efforts to enlarge our intercourse and remove limitations, and has ever prevailed. It was recognised as an objection to the last war. The course of events urged on by the opium trade left but little alternative at the last, or there can be no doubt, with the additional fear of the uncertain result of a struggle with a vast empire like China, the resources of which were so imperfectly known, the British Government would have been deterred from any onward step, as these motives did in effect prevent any hostile aggression, so long as it was possible to avoid it, without the sacrifice of our trade.

The war over, it again prevailed, and we are once more in a position to accept as final the increased but limited advantages resulting, or to try for more, and by our policy to avert or provoke disturbing causes which must lead to change. The moderation which marked, and the policy which dictated, our treaties carried us back to the old ground of a nation trading by sufferance, under limitations and restrictions which kept us at the boundaries of the empire, and with us the rest of the Western world, the only difference being enlarged facilities and better guarantees for the pursuit of trade on the coast-line, and within the restricted limits of the five ports selected. It is now for the British Government to determine whether we should rest content with the revenue derived from an import of some 60 million lb. of tea and the export from India of 40,000 chests of opium, netting together some 7 millions sterling to the British and Indian Government, together with the incidental advantage of the raw produce of silk, promising to render us independent of Europe and the adjoining markets for the supply of this staple of an important branch of our manufactures at a cheaper rate, and the market for Indian cotton, the circumstances which lend to China nearly all its importance; or take measures, not free from danger and difficulty, of great prospective magnitude, both in a political and commercial sense, to make China a great market for our manufactures also. At present the Chinese take considerably less than 2 millions sterling in annual value out of an aggregate production of some 70 millions. In this respect they are of less importance to us as customers than the West India colonies, the Italian States and islands, or one of the larger European States, so small a fraction do they absorb. The prospect that would urge us on should be the hope of seeing China take of our manufactures as large a share as all Europe, and instead of a couple of millions, create a demand for more than twenty. The produce of tea and silk we have, the market for opium and Indian cotton is ours. We want an equally large and beneficial market for our manufactures—our cotton fabrics, woollens, linen, and cutlery, for which our powers of production are all but unlimited.

Two questions suggest themselves, therefore, on the solution of which the decision should depend, it being assumed as unquestioned that something of risk and danger to that which we have must attend all effective efforts to win that which is as yet wanting.

To the first four great commercial objects involved in our relations with China, as above specified, shall we sacrifice the fifth?

Or shall we peril all for the attainment of the fifth, by the endeavour to create a market for our manufactures which at present exists only in its rudiments, and to a small fractional value?

If the extreme exiguity of the market for manufactures be not held to justify the voluntary incurrence of great risk or danger to our tea, silk, opium, and raw cotton trade, which form the great bulk of our commerce as it exists at the present day, British and Indian, it will only remain to be determined what are the various secondary means at our disposal for the improvement of this fifth or manufacturing branch as the primary object, and their respective chances of success on the one hand and dangers attending their adoption on the other. For the dangers, it must be well understood, are of two kinds—those attending failure, and those which may be consequent upon, and the ulterior results of, success in the first instance.

It being borne in mind that whatever we ask and obtain will be claimed and enjoyed by others, it is necessary to consider to what use they are liable to be turned by foreign Powers over whom we can exercise no control, and whose interests or national jealousies may clearly be adverse to our position in China and the advancement of our commerce. To these various heads of a subject in every point of view great and important, and surrounded by doubts and difficulties of the most embarrassing character, the best information that can be brought by any one individual is insufficient for a perfectly satisfactory solution of the questions which must be discussed. All that can be attempted is to throw some additional light upon the general bearing of the whole, and to contribute such data and practical inferences, illustrative of our present position and its future prospects, as may help to suggest a safe conclusion as circumstances develop new phases in our relations and call for action.

Section III.

Assuming the present basis of our relations to continue, the best course to be pursued in actual circumstances, more especially for the maintenance of our advantageous position in the north, is worthy of consideration. The instructions lately received from her Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs are of a nature to suggest inquiry under the three heads to which they refer:—

1. Recourse to the authorities by British subjects in danger of popular violence.

2. Reference in all cases to her Majesty's plenipotentiary for instructions.

3. The verification of the punishment awarded to Chinese offenders.

In reference to the instructions under the first of these heads, it is to be observed that even with such unusual facilities as some of the older missionaries possess who speak the dialect, and are often familiar with the localities they visit, the resource indicated cannot be counted upon as available.

In the Tsingpu affair, as soon as they actually became sensible of danger, it was clearly impossible, nor in one case in a hundred is it probable, that such a resource will be in their power.

In these cases the authorities keep out of the way, they and all their ragged staff of runners and police; and if otherwise, moved by a fear of worse consequences from the acts of the nearest British authority, the means they take to rescue a maltreated foreigner are miserably ineffective and uncertain in their results. Whoever will read the details of the species of rescue effected in the Tsingpu business will see that it was by the merest chance the three Englishmen had not their brains beaten out, either before the arrival of the disguised runners or while they were waiting an opportunity of stepping in to render the unfortunate sufferers any service.

It must be clear, therefore, that access to the authorities in emergencies of this nature must always be difficult and generally impracticable for a foreigner. Retreat to a boat or other place of safety is as little likely to be attainable.

A salutary dread of the immediate consequences of violence offered to British subjects, the certainty of its creating greater trouble and danger to the native authorities personally than even the most vigorous efforts to protect the foreigner and seize their assailants will entail, seems to be the best and only protection in this country for Englishmen. When the Chinese authorities of all ranks, from the viceroy at Nanking to the lowest police runners, are thoroughly imbued with this feeling, it will not only rouse them to greater energy but find its way to the populace by certain steps, and render such exertion unnecessary, and the nationality of an Englishman will become his safeguard. Hence the impolicy, not to say impossibility, of treating instances of personal outrage such as that of Tsingpu as police cases, and leaving redress to the ordinary administration of Chinese laws. Where justice exists only nominally, and her image should be represented not only blind but deaf, deplorable consequences would result from such a course. There seems to be a democratic spirit among the Chinese which renders the authorities especially averse to risk collision with the populace or any popular feeling. The Chih-hsien is himself exposed to insult and violence if he attempt to enforce the collection of the taxes in a bad season, and but lately he was besieged here in his own yamên. Not ten days ago the Taotai paid 1600 taels of silver to secure a piece of building-ground at the urgent demand of the French consul, rather than exert his authority to compel the owners to take the fair value of $400 offered, and upon the posts put up to mark the boundaries these parties did not hesitate to prohibit its appropriation. The principal check upon the people, and safeguard for the authorities in cases of popular disturbance, seems to be the conviction under which every Chinese quails, of the terrible vengeance that may pursue them and their families, the tumult once over, if they should have been marked or recognised. In proportion as the magistrate is helpless before numbers, is his power large of wreaking summary and vengeful punishment upon each of the individuals that may form the mob, once separated from each other.

Considerations such as these necessarily influence her Majesty's consul on the spot, who each day has under his eyes these significant details, national and administrative. Where danger threatens to involve the persons or the property of British subjects, his sole direct resource is to fall back upon the treaty, and to cover with the ægis of national inviolability individual interests. By any other course he falls inevitably into the hopeless condition of one waiting for such redress as the common course of justice in China usually affords, where everything assuming its form is venal and arbitrary.

The result of all efforts made to secure the apprehension of thieves or the recovery of property stolen from foreigners is conclusive as to the kind of security to be obtained for British subjects where infractions are dealt with as affairs of police in which justice is to take its ordinary course. In scarcely one instance has any redress been obtained since the port was opened. If thieves are overtaken, it is only that they may disgorge their booty for the benefit of the police sent after them, and the larger the amount the less chance is there of either apprehension or restitution. Witness Mr Hubertson's robbery, where his servant went off with nearly $10,000 in gold and silver, and he was promptly traced and pursued.

Then in reference to the standing orders that, in case of difficulty arising, reference shall invariably be made to her Majesty's plenipotentiary for instructions. Instances have been very numerous showing the nullity of any means of action on the local authorities here through the Imperial Commissioner at Canton, not only in these matters, but in those treated on higher grounds, and affecting our political position. Last year (1847) not only a list of cases where no satisfactory exertion had been made to obtain redress for property stolen was forwarded, but the consul urged upon Sir John Davis, her Majesty's plenipotentiary at the time, the urgent necessity for the removal of the then acting magistrate at Shanghai, who had openly reviled a consulate servant for taking the service of the barbarians, and dismissed him without redress. The only answer to be obtained from his Excellency Kiying was to the effect that the Chih-hsien, as a territorial officer, was not under his jurisdiction. Fortunately he was removed very shortly for misconduct in the management of Chinese affairs,—for however injurious his proceedings to the British, it was obvious neither redress nor assistance was to be obtained from Canton and the Imperial Commissioner.

The paramount necessity of protecting its subjects in distant countries is of course well understood by her Majesty's Government, and in an oriental State this can only be effected by letting it be known and felt that whoever attacks one of the solitary subjects will be held to have attacked the sovereign and the nation. By this policy a firman, far more potent than the Grand Seignior's in his own territory, is given to every Englishman abroad, ensuring his freedom from injury all over the world.

The treaty viewed in this light becomes a real and efficient bulwark against encroachments, and without such safeguard, with Chinese management, it would at no distant period in all its most important provisions become null and void. No doubt inconvenience results from the necessity of treating casualties of collision between subjects of different countries as infractions of a solemn treaty; but the oriental, and in some respects very peculiar, character of the Chinese, and our relations with them, must be borne in mind, and the lesser of two evils chosen with such discretion and judgment as the circumstances imperatively demand.

At a distant and isolated port like Shanghai, where a brig of war is by no means permanently stationed, the consul is left to his own resources, separated by an interval of many weeks from the assistance of her Majesty's plenipotentiary. When difficulties and emergencies supervene, it is only by prompt demands for redress, and firm resistance to any virtual negation of the rights and privileges guaranteed by treaty, that he can hope successfully to defend the very important interests confided to his charge.

As regards the practicability and expediency of verifying the punishments of any Chinese offender by the presence of a British officer when a sentence is carried into execution, the instruction received could only have been partially applicable to the Tsingpu offenders had it been earlier received, for the most serious punishment was banishment to a penal settlement in Tartary.

But the whole subject is one of peculiar difficulty, nor can any hope be entertained of submitting in this place a satisfactory solution. It has long been felt that of all the provisions of the two treaties, that which provided for the due administration of the laws on Chinese offenders was the most nugatory. The chief difficulty consists in a British officer being present at all during a trial in a Chinese court, assuming the right were to be granted by treaty. Where the ordinary mode of questioning is by torture, a process utterly repugnant to our notions of justice and our sense of what is due to humanity and truth, are we by our presence to sanction and be made parties to such proceedings? Or are we to interfere and insist upon justice being administered not according to their usages, but ours? The objection to both courses seems equally valid, and yet without the presence of an efficient officer there is no guarantee whatever for the due administration of justice.

As regards the presence of an officer at punishments, unless he is in a position to identify the criminal, which must often from the circumstances of the case be impossible, it may be questioned whether our national character is not in danger of being compromised without the real object of such risk being attained. Nothing could more effectually tend to lower us in the opinion of the Chinese than to be imposed upon by the jugglery of a substituted criminal, or the punishment of an innocent man at our instigation, or even the illegal and excessive punishment of a real offender. Yet to all these we are exposed when we take upon ourselves to watch the course of justice and verify the execution of the sentences. It may finally be observed that there are punishments recognised in the Chinese code revolting for their brutality, which an English officer could scarcely sanction with his presence without discredit to our national feeling. A lesser objection exists in the frequency of minor punishments for theft and petty misdemeanours, so that an interpreter would be required for this duty alone.

These are some of the practical difficulties to the effective exercise of any check upon the proceedings of the Chinese authorities in criminal informations against Chinese subjects, and to devise a remedy may require more consideration than has probably yet been given to the subject.

From this review of our actual position at the most favourably situated of the northern ports, and the means by which it has been preserved from deterioration, and in many essential points materially improved, a correct inference may be drawn of the injurious consequences of any retrograde influence from Canton, direct or indirect.

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[APPENDIX II.]
CONFIDENTIAL DESPATCH BY CONSUL ALCOCK TO SIR GEORGE BONHAM, JANUARY 13, 1852.

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's confidential despatch of the 17th ultimo, and although the departure of the Audax within three days of its receipt leaves me but little time for consideration or inquiry, I have devoted so much time and thought to the subject during the last five years that I venture to reply without delay.

On the general scope of coercive measures adapted to ensure success in any negotiations with the Chinese Government, and more especially on the blockade of the Grand Canal as a very cogent means, I have already in my confidential report of January 19, 1849, and subsequently in another of February 13, 1850, submitted the opinion I had formed after long and careful study of our position in China; and further inquiries and experience of the people we have to deal with have only served to confirm the views contained in those reports.

I took the responsibility of sending Mr Vice-Consul Robertson with the Espiègle to Nanking in the spring of 1848 with the strong conviction that at that particular season, with the tribute of grain uncollected and a thousand of these grain-junks actually under an embargo at Shanghai, any demonstration of force in the neighbourhood of the Grand Canal would command immediate attention, and the result went far to establish the accuracy of the conclusion. Circumstances since then have, however, altered both in a favourable and an adverse sense. Taokuang, with his humiliating experience of the superiority of our arms and his known and acknowledged desire to avoid any further collision during his reign, is no longer on the throne; and his young successor, untaught by the experience of his father, has given very unequivocal signs of disposition to enter upon a different policy. On the other hand, a protracted and serious insurrection in the southern provinces has drained his treasury, weakened his authority, and now threatens, unless he finds means by force or bribery to put the insurgents down, at no distant period to affect the stability of his throne. If the arrogance of youth in the new sovereign should therefore dispose him on the one side to venture on a crusade against Western Powers, his perilous position in regard to his own provinces cannot fail to impress upon him the prudence of at least temporising until a more convenient season. I am led to think, therefore, from all I can learn, that the two contrary forces will go far to neutralise each other, and that Hsienfêng, with all his hostile feeling, will be at the present moment as accessible to reason, from the peculiarly embarrassing position in which he is placed, if backed by coercive means, as was his predecessor at the conclusion of the war.

From this your Excellency will perceive that I deem the present time, from the political condition of China, more favourable than any later period may be for the success of coercive measures. As regards the season of the year to be selected, both in reference to the navigation of the Yangtze-kiang and the transmission of the grain tribute, the blockading should not be commenced later than April. During the summer the sun melts the snow on the mountains and sends down the freshets, swelling the river until it overflows its banks with great accession of violence to the current. When the fleet sailed up in July 1842 many of the soundings taken were over paddy-fields, and altogether out of the bed of the river, as the soundings and observations of the Espiègle clearly demonstrated. The tribute also begins to be sent up to Peking from some parts as early as April. A fleet of grain-junks were at the mouth of the canal when the Espiègle made her appearance at the end of March in 1848.

How far a blockade at the present time would have the desired effect—that is, if made effective before the month of May—is a question upon which I cannot feel any doubt. Much would of course depend upon the suddenness of the descent, and therefore upon the previous secrecy observed; much upon the available nature of the force employed. Besides two or three large-class vessels, I am strongly persuaded there should be at least two small steamers of light draught of water, and one or two brigs, which would be quite as effective against any force the Chinese could bring to bear, and far more manageable and serviceable, as well as less costly, than larger vessels. If the result aimed at were not very promptly attained, it might be necessary to retake Chinkiang-fu as a base of operations, and to detach two or three small-class vessels to watch the entrances of water-courses and canals nearer the mouth of the Yangtze-kiang, of which there are at least four, and through them junks with tribute might otherwise pass to the north and into the Grand Canal at some point above the Yangtze-kiang, and between it and the Yellow river. There is also a very free communication with all the lowland districts south of the Yangtze-kiang and the north above Nanking by means of the Seu ho, which runs from Soochow west into the Yangtze-kiang at Wu Hu and Taiping. But from this point northward there does not appear to be any good water communication leading to the Grand Canal without descending the Yangtze-kiang as far as Iching and Kwachow on the two mouths of the Grand Canal at its junction with the Yangtze-kiang below Nanking. These secured would therefore stop the main traffic by the Seu ho route to the north for the relief of Peking. My own impression is that if no warning were given, nor time allowed for previous preparation, our demands would be granted within one month of the commencement of the blockade. If from any unforeseen cause, however, the negotiations were protracted, and the Chinese Government had leisure to recover from its panic and adopt plans for obtaining tribute and grain by circuitous routes, it would be in that case that Chinkiang-fu might be required, together with a good watch on the various tributaries of the Yangtze-kiang below and eastward of Nanking already referred to; and perhaps on the coast towards the Yellow river and the Peiho two or three cruisers might be required to intercept junks sent by sea with tribute. Such in effect is the intention of the Chinese Government at the present moment, without any reference to us. The grain to be collected from the eight provinces, divided into upper and lower, consists of the common grain and of white rice, the latter for the consumption of the emperor and his Court, which it is intended shall be sent this season by sea from Shanghai,—a circumstance peculiarly favourable to the success of any blockading measures, since, as it would be necessary under any contingencies to cover Shanghai and our large interests there with an effective force, the same means would enable her Majesty's Government to lay an embargo on a large and especially important portion of the tribute already collected in the port. I do not imagine it would be contemplated to abandon Shanghai, and I am far from thinking it would be either necessary or expedient—though at Ningpo, Foochow, and perhaps Amoy, it might be considered well—to withdraw the few foreigners for a time. At Canton, no doubt, it would be imperative either to give adequate protection or to abandon the place. On this point I am scarcely called upon to offer an opinion. It probably does not enter into any plans contemplated to strike a blow at Canton, or to adopt any measure necessarily entailing bloodshed and heavy loss: were it otherwise, no doubt the fall of Canton and the humiliation of the Cantonese would in itself go far to read a salutary lesson throughout the empire, and especially at Peking, where there is reason to believe they look upon Canton and the Cantonese as affording the great barrier to our progress, from our inability to make any impression either upon the city or the people.

I do not, of course, presume to offer these suggestions on the general measures which might be found needful for the protection of British interests along the coast, and the distribution and economising of our forces while a blockade on the Yangtze-kiang was being effected, as better informed than your Excellency on such points, but merely refer to them incidentally as necessary parts of any plan for demanding redress by coercive measures at the mouth of the Grand Canal.

For the better illustration of the points touched upon in this despatch in reference to the different points of access to the Grand Canal, either coastwise or by the Yangtze-kiang below Nanking and the two mouths of the canal, which will have to be borne in mind, I beg to enclose a very rough and hasty plan of the main channels, taken chiefly from the elaborate map of the empire published under the Jesuits, and which Mr Medhurst, when my last confidential report was in hand, was good enough at my suggestion to work at on an enlarged scale, availing himself of all the additional information, by comparison of maps, itineraries, &c., that was accessible.

I shall be glad if in this somewhat hasty reply to your Excellency's despatch I have been able to afford such information as you have desired; but if not, or upon any other points it should appear that further inquiries can be prosecuted advantageously and without creating suspicion, I shall be happy to give my best efforts to carry out your Excellency's instructions.

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[APPENDIX III.]
CONFIDENTIAL DESPATCH TO SIR GEORGE BONHAM, DATED JUNE 17, 1852. (EXTRACT.)

If I might without presumption express an opinion on our general policy in China, I should add that it seems in danger of being paralysed by the two antagonistic forces [alluded to in the preamble], and by necessities difficult to reconcile. The magnitude and extreme importance of our interests in the East—in commerce and revenue (for, as I have shown, the China trade is the connecting-link between Great Britain and India, and necessary to complete the circle of trading operations)—suggest on the one hand the necessity of avoiding all measures that may rashly jeopardise such interests, yet nevertheless make it imperative on the other to adopt firmly and unhesitatingly whatever steps may be necessary to prevent loss or deterioration. How these can best be reconciled is the problem to be solved. As late as the last war, throughout all our previous intercourse the attempt had been made to arrive at the solution by a system of temporising and concession, even to that which was unjust and injurious, and this steadily carried out, with a few rare and brief exceptions. Our policy since the treaty has manifested a tendency to an opposite course, encouraged no doubt by the result of the first determined stand made. It has, nevertheless, been so hesitatingly developed that we appear to halt between the two. In words we have asserted resistance to insult or wrongful treatment, but in acts we have not seldom temporised and submitted. The fruit of this policy we now are beginning to reap. Principles of action have sometimes been asserted and then abandoned, instead of being persisted in until the end was accomplished. In dealing with the Chinese, however, nothing appears to be so necessary as to keep the ground once assumed. If this be true, there cannot be too much caution used in first asserting or contending for a right; but that step once taken, there is no safe halting-place between it and full success. A course of alternate opposition and submission cannot do otherwise than end in defeat; and defeat in this country is never limited to its immediate consequences. It has appeared, on looking back through the ten years which have now elapsed since the termination of the war, that the first half of the period was passed in comparative security under the strong influence its events were calculated to exercise on the Chinese mind; but, true to their invariable policy, they have never ceased to seek by every means in their power to make the British authorities develop under what instructions they were acting and to penetrate into their true spirit, in order to ascertain the limits to which our sufferance would extend and the nature of the powers of resistance or retaliation her Majesty's Government were ready to authorise. I think it cannot be matter of doubt to any one resident in China throughout this period, that during the latter portion the Chinese have felt assured of the essentially pacific determination of our Government and the policy of endurance and sufferance in all cases of minor wrongs. And, assured under such a system (with the known impossibility of any direct action in Peking), they have, during the last two years more especially, felt emboldened, systematically, by a series of apparently small encroachments and aggressions, to undermine our position, and to restore, as nearly as may be, the state of things existing before the war, extending the system to all the ports.

With this conviction I have thought it desirable to bring before her Majesty's plenipotentiary in detail many illustrations of the deteriorating influences at work at this port, and now venture to pass these rapidly in review, that their collective evidence may not be wanting. And in order that I may be brief, I shall merely note in the margin the number and dates of various despatches bearing upon similar matters, without further reference to their contents. By these I think it will be seen that the general current and tendency of all the official acts for the last two years upon which I have frequently commented as they occurred has been distrust, and strongly adverse alike to our trade and the stability of our position.

Evidence, I think, will be found in these records to establish the fact that the present Taotai Wu (or Samqua, as he is more familiarly known, of Canton trading memory) has been especially selected as the chief agent to initiate, and the fit instrument for carrying out, a retrograde policy: his character, means, and the general direction of his efforts to damage our local position, territorial and social—to cripple and restrict our trade, and to Cantonise the whole of our relations both with people and authorities in the north—are all in keeping with this mission, and incomprehensible on any other supposition.

The steps of his progress have been carefully watched, and in the despatches noted in the margin traced, together with their effects—neither very apparent on the surface. These may perhaps best be considered by aid of a somewhat arbitrary division as to subjects rather than chronologically, for they have generally run on conterminous and parallel lines. Starting from the Tsingpu affair, in the spring of 1848, and his baffled efforts to pluck from us the best fruit of the risks incurred to vindicate an important principle, from which date he hung about the place—in the background it is true, but not the less busy as a spy from Nanking, between which place and Shanghai, occasionally acting Taotai, at others absent, he oscillated until the fit time appeared to have arrived. After the accession of the new emperor, Lin was displaced from the Taotai office, and he was finally installed by "imperial appointment" to put his hand to the work before him. His steps may be traced in the sinister influences and obstruction brought to bear upon all our interests.

The land tenure and regulations under which a foreign colony had rapidly risen covering more than a hundred acres of land, as an element of strength and independence to the British more especially, seems to have excited both the jealousy and the fears of the Chinese authorities. There seemed no limit to its progress and development; each year saw more and more land occupied, while houses of a large and costly description rapidly filled up the vacant spaces.

Before Wu came ostensibly upon the scene some progress had been made in the creation of difficulties, and the authorities having in the spring of 1849 granted a large and absurdly disproportionate tract to the French, over which the French consul claimed a territorial jurisdiction, the national susceptibilities of the Americans gave the opportunity of bringing French and Americans, and the latter and the English, into collision, and they were not slow to profit by it to set the land regulations practically aside while officially appearing to uphold them.

The desire of the community to carry out an extravagant and not very practicable scheme for a new park or exercise-course that should enclose nearly the whole arable ground and villages within our limits afforded the next opportunity, and the arrogant humour and superstitions of the Fukein clans supplied the ready instruments for inflicting a second blow upon the rights and security of the foreigner at Shanghai connected with the occupation of land.

These attacks and aggressions have since been perseveringly followed up—popular commotions, abusive and menacing placards, having all been used in turns to the damage of our position, and the result has been discredit, broken regulations, divided and antagonistic pretensions between the two most numerous classes of foreign residents—the British and American—and between all foreigners and the Fukein clans, the most turbulent and aggressive of the native population at the port,—a result of which, looking to all the present embarrassment and future danger to our interests it is calculated to produce, I am bound to say I think Samqua may well be proud. The national vanity of the French leading them to an absurd and useless acquisition, the love of exercise of the British leading the equestrians to press an ill-advised and impracticable scheme for a three-mile racecourse, and the national susceptibilities of the Americans leading them to dispute the land tenure which hitherto had been the condition of their own security,—all have been adroitly turned to the greatest advantage, to the profit of the Chinese and the serious detriment of the foreigner.

The progress made in creating obstacles to our commerce has been not less worthy of remark. For a system of total laxity in the custom-house administration under Lin a capricious alternation of vigilance and neglect, under which oppressive acts of partiality and injustice are frequently perpetrated, has been substituted, to the great derangement of operations in trade. The carrying trade has been harassed and impeded, and the Taotai is now actively engaged in efforts to get the cargo-boats under his exclusive control, and to organise a cohong of five firms on the model of the ancient establishments at Canton, while already—I believe at his suggestion (indeed he scarcely denies it)—information has reached me that a new transit duty of seven mace per picul has been levied at Chung-An on the produce proceeding thence from the Black Tea districts to Shanghai. A duty of over 7 per cent, in violation of one of the most important of our treaty stipulations, with a monopoly of cargo-boats, a right to levy new transit duties, and a cohong—the three leading advantages secured by the treaty vanish. It is vain to disguise the fact, for nothing can be clearer or more certain. On these points I have been collecting detailed information, and shall shortly be enabled to write more fully on the subject. I beg your Excellency in the meantime to rest assured that the main facts have already been placed beyond doubt. In connection with these, freedom of access to different points in the interior and with Ningpo by the inland route as advantages long enjoyed have also attracted attention, and some more feeble efforts have been made to throw obstacles in the way.

In the administration of justice perhaps more than in any other directions adverse influences have been brought to bear with complete effect. Redress for any injury inflicted on a foreigner, protection from frauds, or recovery of debts, are all wholly unattainable. The action of the Chinese tribunals in our behalf is null and void, and the course taken by the authorities in all cases referred to there amounts to a total denial of justice. The act of the Taotai in seizing and flogging Mr ——'s boatmen was only wanting to withdraw from the foreigners all protection dependent upon the Chinese laws and their administration under our treaties.

Under these three heads, therefore, I would sum up the progressive and evident deterioration in our position here. The tenure of land, the operations of trade, the administration of justice, have all been objects of attack, and with serious prejudice. That, however, which is at present evident as the effect of the steps taken, forms but a small part of the injury which will in a very short period be too manifest to be overlooked if no determined steps are taken to reverse the policy now pursued. The time, I am firmly persuaded, has arrived for meeting by energetic action these insidious attacks—as the least dangerous course—if our most important interests here are really to be defended with any effect.

How this may best be done I feel your Excellency is entitled to demand from the officer who seeks so earnestly to impress you with a conviction that action is necessary, and I have no wish to shrink from the responsibility of suggesting measures by which I conceive some positive good may be effected, to repair the mischief, and much impending evil at all events averted.

In reference to the land, also, it would seem very desirable that some understanding should be come to with the United States chargé d'affaires by which any participation in the advantages of the British location, consistent with the security of all, should be freely conceded, while anything incompatible with this condition must be as certainly resisted, in their interest not less than ours. If Dr Parker prove impracticable I see no resource but a reference home, when I trust all the real importance of the questions at issue to the interests of British trade and the British position at this port will be steadily kept in view; nor should it be forgotten that in its maintenance all foreign States are deeply interested, whatever the Americans for the moment may think. Any injury to our position must recoil with double force upon so weak and small a minority as they are when left to stand alone.

As regards the measures now in progress for organising a cohong, levying new transit duties, and creating a monopoly of cargo-boats, all tending in the most serious degree to fetter our trade, in indirect violation of the express stipulations of our treaty, I confess there seems to be but one course consistent with the credit of our Government or the defence of our interests, and that is resolutely and firmly to resist them as infractions of treaty. Two modes of doing this, however, suggest themselves. The one is by active proceedings—prohibiting the payment of any maritime duties by British subjects until satisfaction is obtained, and a distinct intimation that if this does not suffice other and more determined measures should follow. The other involves a system of negation that would be peculiarly embarrassing to the Chinese local authorities, and eventually to the Government at Peking. This may be carried out by simply holding the treaty to be in abeyance by their own acts, and declining to take any steps with British subjects to enforce the conditions—whether as regarded customs, access to the interior, the purchase of land, or the administration of justice—so long as the measures objected to were persisted in.

In reference to these two courses, I will not hesitate to say that, if left to my discretion, I should adopt the first; but the condition of ultimate success would be the certainty that, if the object was not attained by such means, her Majesty's Government would feel pledged to send a squadron to the mouth of the Grand Canal next spring with an imperative demand for the Taotai's disgrace and the reversal of all this obnoxious policy, and authority to resort to coercive measures if not listened to.

If, however, it should be deemed preferable to incur the risk of doing nothing—or what, I confess, appears to me even more dangerous, to make protests, or demonstrations which there is no serious intention of following up to their legitimate conclusion—the negative policy is of course the only one to be attempted. The responsibility of the initiative would then be thrown upon the Chinese themselves. The tables would be turned, and the Chinese will be left to right themselves as they best could, while a large revenue will slip through their hands and manifold complications and embarrassments in their relations with foreigners arise to their confusion. The task, in fine, they now assign to us would devolve upon them, and their sole remedy, if they did not choose to give way, would be to stop the trade; but as that would be a plain and ostensible casus belli, they will not attempt it.

If, on the other side, nothing effective be done, I must frankly state my conviction that our position in the north will rapidly deteriorate, and our relations be embroiled, if not irreparably injured. I believe means for the amelioration of both may be safely taken, and have long been required; but I feel still more strongly convinced that at no distant period they must be taken, and the longer they are delayed the greater will be the ultimate cost, and the more imminent the hazard to our future trade and relations with China.

If I am correct in these inferences, the conclusion of the whole must be that the time has arrived when it will be no longer safe to defer strong and effective measures in defence of our interests, and that there is a clear necessity for present action to avert at no distant period a costly war and a shock to this empire it is so ill capable of sustaining, that it must of necessity be attended with great peril not only to the present dynasty but to the existing social organisation of the country.

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[APPENDIX IV.]
ACCOUNT OF THE SALT TRADE ANNEXED TO MR PARKES' SUMMARY OF THE NATIVE MARITIME TRADE OF FOOCHOW, 1846. (EXTRACTS.)

They have constituted the sale of salt a monopoly, which they place in the hands of a set of merchants whom they hold liable for the payment of a fixed amount of tax. This, in some instances, falls rather heavy upon them, but proves an easy measure to the authorities, who have thus but little trouble or expense of collection. All the supplies of salt are drawn from the sea-shore, and consequently there is an appointment of salt inspector in every maritime province, who superintends everything connected with the gabelle: he holds a high rank and receives good emoluments from the Government, 3000 taels per annum. It also forms one of the duties of the governor-general of the province to act as chief superintendent of salt excise.

Most of the supplies from Fukien have to be sent into the interior and the adjacent province of Kiangsi viâ Foochow. The salt is made all along the shore to the southward....

The salt is made at these places by people belonging to the various localities, and the manufacture gives employment to numbers of individuals, who in those sterile districts have few other means of subsistence. The general method of manufacture is to collect the saturated loam from the beach in heaps, and thence to draw off the brine by drainage into large but shallow-built vats, when crystallisation is effected by exposure to the natural heat of the sun. The brine being all extracted from the heap, it is removed to the beach, and the same earth, having been immersed in the salt-tide, can again be used. In fine weather great quantities can thus be expeditiously manufactured, but a succession of rain stops the works, and a scarcity in the supplies is the consequence. The producers are exempted from all taxes or charges on the part of the Government, on the consideration that they are in mean labouring circumstances, though many of the salt-farms are very extensive, and some of their conductors possessed of better competence than the merchants, on whom the whole burden of taxation falls. Junks are despatched to these places by the salt merchants for freights.

The Government system of exacting a fixed annual amount of gabelle is very defective, and places the trade, which might prosper under other management, on an unhealthy basis. When the trade is dull, it becomes still more depressed by the nature of the liabilities that the merchants have at all times equally to bear, and which then become burdensome; and again, on the other hand, in case of a thriving season, the revenue is in no way advantaged. Their wretched executive, however, prevents any improvement. They therefore content themselves with fixing a stated sum, upwards of 300,000 taels per annum; and if they can secure the requisite number of persons to undertake to dispose of a certain quantity of salt that will yield excise to this amount, they are content. Thus each merchant is bound to conduct the sale of the quantity that he undertakes, or rather is held responsible for the amount of duty due on such quantity, and having once paid this up, should he be so disposed, he is at perfect liberty to transport and sell more salt on his own account, duty free; whilst, on the other hand, should he, from a glut in the market or other circumstances, not be able to dispose of the quantity of which he had undertaken the sale, he has still to pay duty on the whole at a fixed unalterable rate.

It is therefore the imminent risk attending salt speculations that causes people of property to be so averse towards entering them. They involve a great outlay of capital, with continual liability but uncertain remuneration. Thus, if a man embarks the whole or greater part of his means in speculations which do not succeed, he becomes instantly embarrassed with the Government, and, with no incomings to relieve him, may perhaps not succeed in recovering his first failure. Most of the merchants being men who are selected merely on account of their capital, the management of their business is entirely in the hands of those they employ, for whose honesty or capacity they are mainly dependent for success. The charges and expenses connected with carrying on a salt business are very great. Yet there are several instances of old merchants employing good managing men, and possessing plenty of supporting capital, having amassed large fortunes in the trade, though, on the contrary, cases are much more numerous of speculators having suffered losses and contracted debts with the Government. A debt to the State of no less than 1,450,000 taels by the salt dealers of Foochow has thus gradually collected.

The nomination of salt merchants is almost invariably compulsory, and no one can retire from the business without he is totally unable from want of means to continue in it. In these cases the reflection that they were obliged to undertake the transactions that led to their ruin must add increased poignancy to their losses. When once, however, they have undertaken a transaction, they are much favoured by the authorities, who give them entertainments and confer honours and distinctions upon them. There are head merchants appointed, who hold some control over the proceedings of the others. To be a head merchant a man must be of known character and not owing anything to the Government. They are responsible for all the other merchants, who, however trustworthy, have all to be secured by the head merchants. In case of any merchant becoming in arrears with the payment of his duties, the salt inspector orders the head merchants to limit him to a certain time in which to liquidate all charges. According as the case needs, the head merchants convene and consult as to whether they should pray for an extension of the term or require some of the other merchants in substantial circumstances to lend the necessary amounts, or perhaps they may proceed to pay it themselves. If also they find that any of the other merchants are incompetent, from want of means, to manage their business, they represent the same to the salt inspector, that they may be allowed to retire. At present there are four head merchants out of a total of sixty-one....

Smuggling is also carried on to some extent. As this, however, affects the vital interests of the salt merchants, they show great vigilance in investigating and reporting to the authorities any instances that may come within their knowledge, and for this purpose fit up and maintain several small vessels which keep up a constant watch against contraband proceedings.

There are a multiplicity of fees and charges which prove very onerous to the merchants. [Here follows a list of forty-seven separate fees, dues, and charges, amounting to 15,300 taels, or about £5000 sterling, on 900,000 lb. weight, or about one-eighth of a penny per lb.]

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.