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 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.