The Express.
London, England, 1858-09-16 00:00:00

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(PROM 001 OWN

HONG KONG, JULY 22.

By this mail a Treaty which has been concluded
with China, accepted by the Emperor, and is now
here for ratification, will reach England. Of this
' Treaty it is enough to say that its fifty-six articles
make ample provision for everything that can be de-
aired in the relations between the two Empires—un-
limited access to the interior, increased facilities of
access on the seabord, direct and permanent rela-
tions with Pekin—these, which have long been
considered the cardinal points of any nego-
tiation for an improved basis of international
policy and commerce between European Powers
and the Chinese, have all been obtained.
Not indeed without difficulty—not without a serious
menace, it is said, of an advance on Pekin itself.
The more honour to the negotiator who,- with dimi-
nished forces and nearly single-handed, has been
able to command sateess. It would be hard and
essentially unjust to detract from the-merit of the
negotiator, because in obtaining all that diplomacy
can ever win, and more than we could well have
lived from such a nation as the Chinos, Ire may
Nee meaea to make large deductions bean the seem-

ing worth of that which we have obtained. Let
or give all honour, then, to ' Lord Elgin
for a treaty which, it is not too much
to say, makes as great a stride in the relative
positions of western nations with China and the
mutual relations of the races, u did the Treaty of
Nankin in 1843, compared with the state of things
existing prior to that date. Then we wen shut
out from every port of China but one, and that the
most distant from the capital—treated as Barbarians
with oetentatioa of insolence—and a traditional sys-
tem of offensive excluaiou alone acknowledged as
the only true mode of dealing with scattered races
so immeasurably their inferiors. The war which
preceded, and the treaty concluding that intermit_
nom, first rudely awakened the Chinese rulers from
their dream of invulnerability, and took them out of
their fool's paradise of unquestionable and unap-
proachable supremacy. Then for the first time a
breach war made in the great enceinte which
guarded the "inner kingdom" from the profane
intrusion of foreigners, so long deemed unworthy
to enter. A breach WAS made, but the
surrounding wall was left standing—the policy
of exclusion still remained erect and accepted by
Great Britain, on condition that the limits should be
enlarged and the points of contact for commercial
object. be made five instead of one. In nearly all
elm the previous state was restored— =elusion from
Pekin and all direct intercourse—exclusion from the
great inland centres of trade and trunk lines of na-
tive commerce—exclusion even from the provincial
city we were located at with our largest commercial
interests, and from the inflated officials appointed to
carry out the treaty—exclusion, that is, of the
idlest kind, and for an exclusively offensive purpose,
to plum upon us a brand of inferiority and degrada-
tion. So for fifteen years, under a perpetual
menace of interruption, affairs went on, well and
ill, but commerce vastly extending, mainly
through the accident which gave us Shanghai
in the north, fax removed from the sinister influ-
ences and intolerant spirit of the mouth; and another
accident, which gave us two men in sucesmion at
that port, with energy to build up and courage to
maintain a position, in relation both to the people
and the authorities, the exact reverse of Canton. This
traditional and time-honoured policy of isolation and
injurious exclusion, left standing in all its plenitude,
though mitigated in some of its consequences by the
treaty of Nankin, has now finally fallen to the
ground and disappeared from the face of our treaties,
to exist henceforth only in the traditions and preju-
dices of the riders of China and its official hierarchy.
Tea year' of vigorous effort in paths of
peace and commerce under wise direction
will alone be needed to secure great results, and
such rich fruit as shall benefit alike thee" who give
and those who receive. Yet one mere condition i.
essential—that no one great blunder, or series of
smaller blunders, shall be made by the treaty powers
and their agents or representatives throughout
the country ; and that those rightly informed of the
immensity of the evil and danger resulting from all
lawless acts and violence on the part of foreigners
mixing among the Chinese over the breadth of the
land, should act with such energy, good faith, and
unanimity, that the latter should never have jest
cause of complaint against nation or individual on
this head. Many diffienities in the conduct of rela-
tions between opposing races must inevitably arise,
but, with the sole exception of Canton, none, it may
safely be predicted, which may not be satisfactorily
disposed of with good sense, firmness, and a spirit of
justice on our aide. The Canton affair is sernething
apart—altogether special in many of its cha-
racters, and demanding a like speciality in
the measures, whether of peace or war, by
which confldence and peaceable relations may
be restored. It is difficult even to readers
at hems to realize the true feature" of this
untoward complication, over which the greatest
triumph of diplomacy at Pekin can exercise so little
influence. A few words in explanation may, how.
ever, moist. The province and city of Canton have
long been under the dominion of a war faction, while
all the bonds of society and the mutual ties alert!
obligation and protection have been torn and
loosened by the wildest excesses of insurrection and
a general spirit of discontent and insubordination.',lt
is long since the provincial authorities have been in
the full exercise of their legitimate functions, still
longer since Pekin has been able to exercise any
direct and efficient authority over the influential
elements which leaven the masses in this pro-
vince. The body of the " gentry," of which
en smolt is beard form the moving power of the Can-
ton war party, are designated by the term Shan-
kum. The braves" are the villagers and clans-
men of the members of the Shun-kum, and form the
militia, police, and troops of the faction. Them con-
slit at this moment of all the disorderly, insurgent,
and viselike elements scattered among an excitable
and largely predatory population. The Shun-kusa.
the leading members of which have long bees amo•
elated in all the arts of government with the higher
provincial authorities of the province, have at the
punt anent all real power in their hands,'and
leave bat the shadow to Hwang, the meetly R-
I pointed Viceroy and Imperial Ceenmiselener. Under
lir imperial authority they levy:a war taxed Mantra',
on all who are known to possess any Zee"' sad
is resist is death or ram, sad to be dummied ea an
enmity of the goverment and the country. Thu
.
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To the gentry arociated in the Shun-kum belong
all the educated cluses, all who either hold official
rank (woe or purchased), or a degree fitting
them for office. The whole material elements, there.
fore, of the official hierarchy are there, and naturally
powering, when combined, inordinate influence. It
is this organisation of gentry and braves to which
we are opposed—who will listen to no terms, scoff at
conciliation, and will only yield obedience to the
strong hand of superior force. Until they are
humbled and defeated, not in Canton, but in their
own strongholds outside, neither peace nor the
fruits of negotiation at Pekin can be looked
for. The Emperor has no power to control,
no troops to coerce them, were it not other-
wise too fine a field for Chinese diplomacy,
where measures of hostility may be privately encou-
raged, while proclamations denounce them publicly.
What is to be done here must be done by ourselves ;
and if peace, with restored commerce, is to be won,
it must be by oar own right hand, however reluc-
tant we may foal to engage in the work.
As to the treaty itself, it is so oomplete:and large
ill its provhions that the chief danger at home will
be that of exaggeration u to its immediate effects
on our commerce. Many years must elapse before

we shall realise a tithe of the benefits it is ultimately
calculated to secure, with temper, discretion, and
good faith on the part of Europeans, official and
mercantile. The immediate results will probably be
nil. Some time must elapse before new ports
can be opened or a new trade spring up. Our own
merchants are sorely crippled in China by the last
unfavourable season of tea and silk. Many of the
leading house have suffered heavily, some have
failed altogether to weather the crisis. New ports
entail new establishments and great expenses, with

extension of *vital. Moreover, the most precious
of all the 0000ariona, the navigation of the
Yangteskiang, and a consular poet at Hankow, the
great central emporium, is valueless while it is the
battle-ground of imperialists and insurgents. This
great and wealthy city, on the seawalls of two
great rivers, is itself a deserted ruin, as are twenty
other large cities along the line. But there is hope in
the future; and if that spirit of jostioe and moderation
so often invoked and so seldom found among civilised
states when dealing with Eastern:peoples,:only pre-
vail in the conduct of the Western treaty powers, it
may yet prove providential for both moss, that even
the miserable affair of the lorcha should have inter-

rupted our relations—since it will have been the
means of taking those relations off the shifting sand
of a lie and a delusion as regarded the supremacy of
the one power and the immeasurable inferiority and
subjection of all others, and placed them on the
broad and intelligible truth that all nations exer-
cising sovereign power are equal, and all en-
titled to maintain intercourse, as • oomity of
nations, upon terms of mutual benefit under
a recognised code of international law and polity.
This is the truth which is now plainly written on
the face of the treaty of Tientsin, and this is the
lesson the four greatest powers of the world have
left graven on the mind of China, by their recent
combination to enforce its recognition. Much—all
now depends perhaps upon the first step these
powers may take to enforce good faith, not only on
the Chinese rulers, but upon their own people. How
mach, therefore, upon the character and ability of
the representatives and consular agents to whom
they delegate their authority. Is it quite vain to
hope that, for once, our own government will look
to the one end of our national interests and character,
and appoint only such agents as are competent and
of tried powers to watch over the building up of
this new edifice of national policy and commerce P