The Sun.
London, England, 1858-01-14 00:00:00

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of t:11-'0 Yvill d':)_; nor Ling shorElf tial xv-lairroi-i",nt
fixture wars.
..W.liA more is required Imo no'.; :nor
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uli°l.6ottiklincloiBwPeenoubglhe
of the cowry to take any tote or to submit
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to any Modification.
~i._:..J, . '
Whenever v,i1,10_,-:,,11 . am ,
sufficient snec:fici
fact 4 whereb
.11.7 LT.., .;
.'f",c ion we are'bic.ught
up by the hun . ?ar, ~1;i - ....ni ihat,ohrigia'Or,.i.nce
of China is a ki,.,....1............ia it .ay. be -felt.- Eveti-a
that great conglomerate of cities on the Yangtso we "
know little more than that it is the commercial m-
periinu of central China, and that its population is
variously e tin3a,ted at from five to eight millions
souls. We know that it ixists, and that is nearly,
:.11 we know: No one has lit-cu there except native
Chinamen and Jesuit mis,ionaries. There are
some F catteri,d notices of it iu the -Annales de la
Propagation de la Foi (tom. xvii.), and flue has
made mention of it in his journey
from lartaly to
Canton. Tie elder missionary was roused to enihn-
siasm by the immensity of the number of prosp,e-
tive couvAts. For five leagues he saw no'hinq,

to make. The policy of France is altered since the
days when one of the missionaries sneeringly.' de-
scribed it as " Protection de nos missionaires
nationaux, honneur du pavilion, surete des equi-
pages ; mais pas un coup do canon." Baron Gros
has to demand satisfaction for the life of a French
subject who was most barbarously murdered by per-
sons in actual official authority ; satisfaction which
has'been for two years constantly denied to a con-
tinned series of demands unbackesl by force. Ho
will probably think himself entitled to demand
some security against a recurrence of such outrages.
So that, in the end, our requisitions upon the
Chinese Government will probably not be far from
identical.
After what I have written upon the subject, you
will not be surprised to find me rejoicing that the
united Plenipotentiaries have come over to i he com-
mon-sense view of the way in which these demands
should be made. I never could understand how it
could tie more consistent with diplomatic etiquette
to send our missives to the Emperor by the halals
of a petty buttonless Mandarin at the mout h.of
little muddy river, rather than by the hands of the
man whose position is that of Secretary.for aff-drs
with foreign maritime nations. Such is Yeh'e office.
To use a lawyer's phrase, service upon him is as
good service upon the Emperor as service upon
Lord Clarendon would be service upon Queen Vic-
toria. The first idea was analogous to serving a
demand upon Queen Victoria upon the Mayor of
Gravesend. Of course Lord Elgin will not ttcat
with Yeh—at least, I should hope not—unless tie
speaks in the name, of his Sovereign. In hie own
name he can do. nothing but surrender Canton.
But we are bound to infer that an officer of State
will do his duty—se-duty pointed :out -"by Imperial
edicts and by treaties--rand, whatever may be our
particular relationa sritli him, will _ transmit our
communications to his Court. If -we are lb'
treat these voluntary outlaws from national society
according to the technical courtesies of the laws
of nations, surely this is the more regular course.
Yeh is the Emperor's agent just as Lord Clarendon
is Queen Victoria's agent. The scope of Yeh's
authority is to transact all business with maritime
foreign nations, and to receive communications, or
petitions, as the edicts call them, addressed by them
to the Emperor. I have laboured this point often
before in these letters, and circumstances have
forced. the authOrities to take the same view at last.
That by force or by capitulation we shall have
possession of Canton before this year is closed I have
no moral doubt. It will be time then to speculate
upon ulterior proceedings. The object, however,
to which those proceedings should be directed ought
to be kept constantly before the public eye, and
must engage the public attention. The stake is too
valuable to be left unwatched. If it does happen
that your house is on fire that is no reason why you
should put yourself in such a fluster while you are
putting it out that you let Mr. Koff run away with
your strollg box and Mr. Slick elope with your
ledger. I return, therefore, and. shall return,
ictibus crebris,. to my unwelcome task of hammer
ing for attention to English interests in China.
When we have got this city of Canton, about the
neck of which we are now tightening the lasso, we
must use it for the purpese of preventing future
wars and establishing a feeling of mutual regard
between the people of the country and ourselves.
There is only one way in which this can ever be
effected. We must break down the door of parti-
tion. If the brigand bureaucracy of China will re-
' main in the way, we must walk over it. But we
must have free and unrestricted intercourse. Ido
not propose this as an easy. point to gain.. It will
require great tact and decision in our Plenipoten-
tiary to obtain the privilege, and great study and
foresight to hedge it about with the proper seourities.
You will get nothing till you show you are irre-
sistible, and you will then get everything you show
yourself resolved to have. If Lord Elgin has tire
perspicacity to see and the courage to follow this
bold safe course, you people at home, and espe-
cially you men of commerce at home, must support
him, or ho will fail. If he has not you must push
him, force him, or supersede him, for ]re will de-
serve to fail, and must fail. This is the key of the
whole position. Gain it, and, in the words of a
Chinese merchant with whom I often discussed
this question, " All men will be glad." He meant,
and 1 mean, all men except the corrupt official,.
Toe Mandarins have only lately discovered that
necessity. • Yearity jagizirii* lottharti.alss
tiously brought into use, and its strain will con-
tinue to increase until the imposition becomes too
grievous to be borne. I have hitherto said nothing
upon these transit duties ou Chinese exports, but I
tl ink I ought to record a f w facts on this matter,
although I dare not labour the question as I did the
far more vital matter of British manufactures.
Let us take the great staple, tea. In former
times—that is to say, until within the last few years
the only tax upon tea was an impost in the shape of
a land-tax ; a rent of so much per mow, or rood,
paid by the cultivator. In passing by Llangchau
there was a transit levy of 3 cents. per picul (133
lb.), a mere nominal registering duty. Sometimes,
if the mandarin at the To. Kwan was popular or
powerful, lie wa§ able to get an extra sum of two
made a picul, something more than Is. a cwt., for
himself ; but this was always thoroughly under-
stood to be a " Mandarin squeeze-pigeon," and
might have been resisted if it had been worth while.
N ow, however, every picul of tea passing that
same Custom-house pays a duty of five taels three
mace, or nearly 3d. a pound on every chest of tea—a
tremendous duty when the prime value of this article
is taken into consideration. The teas I now speak
of are those which come down from the Bohea-hills,
but those which traverse greater distances are
subject to still further exactions. Formerly the
only Custom-house for their duties was at Hang-
chin, but now every district has its little Kwan.
The finer teas which come from Ningchau, or
Hoopak, or Hoonan, pay from 8i to 9 taels per
picul before they are embarked—nearly Gd. 'per
pound. The rich green tea districts, the produce
of which is attracted to the great emporium of
Woochang, pay a transit duty of 6 taels 8 mace,
instead of the old exaction of two mace. Part of
the recent increase of the tea trade at Foochow is
occasioned by the circumstance that the teas from
that port pay two taels less than those which are
obliged to pass by Hangchau; but this can be altere d
at any moment by the caprice of the local MandaTrhinis,
or by a motion of the vermillion pencil
power of reported that it
been discovered. It is currently
taxing the barbarians has only recently
end of the last war. It will
IsVilaysefirrpstaidbroouutghatt
tinhetoaction to refund the sycee
be of no use that English Chancellors of the Ex-
chequer reduce the tea duties at one terminus of
the voyage if Chinese Chancellors of the Exchequer
can raise the duties at the other terminus. Of course
there will be no lack of Solon geese in England to
make the recondite discovery that the Chinese have
a right to levy what export duties they please on
their own produce. In strict Christian ethics this
is as undoubtedly the fact as that we ought to gives
a roan our cloak if he steals our coat. But in this
bad practical world those high Christian ethics are
eminences which we look up to but never climb to.
Tea is an English necessity and a Chinese monopoly.
If John Chinaman insisted upon heavily taxing
John Bull's tea, sooner or later, upon one pretence
or another pretence, there will be ill bloedtoafinxd
spilt blood. The only way to prevent this is to
placesexp o r t w
hdeurtey
the
eyt e
at riesagt
upthe tol etghmel
of Woochang and
if we could buy in the markets
t a duty of five
it of the grower. If the Yangtse were open, and.
Rangyan, we should get ourfleas yrOwanndando
pay for this tea
"squeeze." Moreover, we should
mace a picul, or one thirty-fifth erat of the present
the rebels one Chinaman at
Yangtse was closed by
hl 30 000
with our woollens and our shirting,. Before. the
not take one piece
Hangyan used to take mont y , pieces of
English shirting s ; he now doe
in a twelvemonth.
This is not all. The exactions of the Mandarins
extend to the means of transit. The cargo boats
are pressed for " military services," and a bribe is
necessary to set them free. A hundred other ex-
tortion traps beset this produce on its way to the
coast. Nothing but the presence of the European
lelesr s taxation
that we o f
purchaser upon the spot can be of the least avail to
preventyo ue atelaintoiittalstea.aoruerhurn
ourishing for
bayonets and fitting the fusees into our 10r-inch

along the shores but the. clorcly packed habitations
of inpi. For a still longer space the ,river, More
than a league in br(adtli, was el owded with beauti-7,
ful and fantastic vessels passing and repassing by
day and by night. Nearer to `harp, where these
veesels became fixed habitati-rais, tie entered at nght
a weter way defincd on enClf.:side by floating' shops;
and for four hours hejourneyed through alabyrinth
of lit streets, all testing on the surface of the river.
In the morning -he rertehe 1 the shore, but only to
fild that WO chang diffeiS from ether Chinese cities -
only in its marvellous magnitude. From -a,-disiance
he saw pagodas and yarnuns and highly ;cultivated
eliviroos ; she.. he approached he saw the usual
det.ids of en aggregate of Chinese habitations,
banks.worn away by inun-lations, workshops half _
undermined by the stream, houses built uponpiles;
no order, no breadth of tborotighfares, but narrow
all cys, along which men and cattle teed hogs prts,,ed
in sure lor jostling crow,lS. Ile reebrds:bii-Sonsa-
, tiOns of the suffocating .odunrs from the open
Manure buckets, just' as I have: experienced at
Shanghai, Sh4uhing,. ;or:
_ll-ingp,),, seewed. i whole Grostiou o .quariklita;
all buying and selling and barteringaistithiifferbig,
a I3abel of trade, a struggling world of dealers and
brokers.

'This is the one great type of a thousand cities
which differ only in dimensions. Row can we tell
from which it may be safe to be excluded, or how
far a single excepti'm may neutralise the benefit of
all we gain and enable the cunning savages to hold
us iu check and keep us in the wrong ?
The capacity of China is as unmeasured as it;
internal geography is unknown. No demand has
yet been made upon it which has not been amply
angwered. Give us leave to go and talk to the .
people, and there is nothing we want which they
cannot sell us. At Swatow you will be able to buy
for a dollar and a half per picul sugar which now
costs you at the Manillas 3 dols. ; at Formosa you
can. obtain the same important commodity at the
same price, and rice and indigo in any quantity.
Coals can be loaded at that island for 3 dols. a ton,
and the carrying trade is upon a scale which no one
can appreciate who has not seen the enormous fleets
of junks which now conduct it under the terrible
risks of shipwreck and piracy.
The facts I have above stated respecting the tran-
sit levies have not been gathered from books or ex-
) traced from returns—the figures are now for the
first time put in writing. They have been caught _
from the lips of those who hare suffered these ex-
actions and paid these duties with constant bwt dis-
contented habitude. I may be wrong in some matter
cf place or district, for the obscure jargon in which ..
we talked made geography difficult ; but a China-
man has capital English for figures and amounts of
money. About the sums of these transit duties I
have no doubt, and the precise. track or citywherein
they are levied is of no importance. Let me add
Ithat these men are so harassed by demands of be-
! nevolouce towards the expenses of the civil war, or
by-blackmail levied by the rebels, that the oldest
merchants are " shutting their books" as thuy ex- .' j.
press it. They look upon the presence .and influence
of the English as the only hope which commerce
hat in China. Many a tale could I tell upon this
subject ; but it is one dangerous to handle in much
detail. The Court of Pekin has sharp eyes and a
long arm.

SHIPS OF WAR ON VIE CLIINA STATION.
AT HONGKONG.
British—Too Algerine, gunboat, 3 guns, Lieutenant
Forbec, commander ; the Bittern; sloop, 12, Lieutenant
Goodenough ; the BustarJ, gunboat, 2, Lieut. lisllowes,
the Clown, gunboat, 2, Lieutenant W. Lee ; the
Coromandel, steamer, 3, Lieutenant Douglas; the Dore,
gunboat, 2, Lieutenant Bullock ; the Drake, gunboat, 3,
Furious, steamer, to; C.Ptaux vat:Anne ,--tah4.1../„..enj., -
gunboat, 2, Lieut. Pauli; the Hercules, hospital, 10, Dr.
G. Burn ; the Janus, gunimat, 2, Lieut. W. H. Jones ;
the Kestrel, gunboat, 2, Lieutenant W. H. Rason ; the
Minden, store ship, 4, Elles, master; the Opossum, gun
beat, 2, Lieut. Campbell, commander ; the Starling,
gunboat, 2, A. J. Villiers ; the Surprise, despatch
steamer, 4, S. G. Crseswell ; Sybille, ship, 44, Comma-
cl,re Elliot ; the Tribune, steamer, 31, Captain Edgell ;
Volcano, steamer, 3, Hockley.
American.—The Levant, sloop, 18, Commander ;1
Smith ; the Minnesota, steamer, 50, Capt. Dupont ; the
San Jacinto, steamer, 15, Commodore Armstrong,
Capt. Bell.
French.—The Meuithe, steamer, 12, Commander M.
deehen
Chenez.
Dutch.—The Meduca, steamer, 18, Capt. Fabius. '
Svanish.—The Don J. Juan, steamer, 6, Brionnes.
- . Ai Mkcao.
Portuguese.—The Amazoua, lorcha, 6, Capt. Escar•
nicha ; the Mondego, brig, 20, Commodore Tavares.
American.—The Portsmouth, sloop, 16, Commander
Foote.
Russian.—The America, steamer, 6, Conunanler
Tschihatschoff.

THE BROTHERS.

French.-The Audacieu e steamer, 50, Capt. Coville ;
the Avalanche, gunboat, 6, Commander Lalond ; the
Dragonne, gunboat, 6, Commander Bang ; Fus6e, gun-
boat, 6, Carpigna ; the Marseau, steamer, 6, Captain
Lamotte ; the Mitraille, gunboat, 6, Commander P. E.
Beranger ; the Nemesis, frigate, 50, Rear Admiral R.
de Genouilly and Capt. Renaud; the Phl6geton, steamer,
8, Capt. Laveque • the Primanguet, steamer, 8, Com-
mander Veignaud.
IN CANTON RIVER.
British.-The Acorn. sloop, 12, Commander Hood ;
the Action, surveying-sloop, 26, Commander Bate ;
the Banterer, gunboat, 3, Lieut. Pim ; the Calcutta,
ship, 80, Rear Admiral Seymour and Capt. Hall ; the
Cruiser, steamer, 17, Commander C. Fellowes ; the
Elk, sloop, 12, Commander.T.F. C. Hamilton ; the Esk,
steamer, 21, Capt. Sir R. M'Clure ; the Forester, gun-
boat, 2, Lieut. Inner ; the Higiallyer, steamer, 21, Capt.
Sbadwell ; the Helper, steamer, 2, Commander Hill ;
the Hornet, steamer, 17, Commander Dowell ; the
Inflexible, steamer, 6, Commander Brooker ; the Lee,
gunboat, 3, Lieutenant Graham ; the Leven, gunboat,
2, Lieutenant Hudson ; the Nankin ship, 50, Coffman-
der Hon. K. Stewart ; th'e Niger, steamer, 14,
Commander Cochrane ; the Plover, gunboat, 2, Lieut.
Wynniatt ; the Racehorse, sloop, 14, Captain
Wylmehnrst ; the Sampson, steamer, 6, Captain G. S.
Hand ; the Slaney, gunboat, 3, Lieutenant Hoskin ;
the Staunch, gunboat, 2, Commander L. Wiedman ;
the Watchful, gunboat, 2, Lieutenant J. A. Whitabed;
the Woodcock, gunboat, .1, Lieutenant E. J. Pollard.
AT AMOY.
British.-The Comus, ship, 14, Commander R
Jenkins.

AT Fooomow.
British.—The Camilla, sloop, 16, Commander Colvile,
AT NINGPO•
British.—The Nimrod, steamer, 4, Commander R.
Dew.

So again of silk. Formerly there was no export
duty upon silk. Now there is an export duty of
$lO a bale, which they talk of raising to and
there is also au additional transit duty of $7 2 mace,
or 2/. 10s., upon each bale.
Now that our silk imports aro thought likely to
range between 100,000 and 150,000 bales per an-
num, this is also a subject not without interest to
us at home. I must, however, in fairness remark
`that the competition of the silk of other countries
renders it less probable that these silk exactions all
fall upon the exporter.
Be it remembered, then, that since the outbreak
of the rebellion in China, the Chinese Mandarins
have levied a tax of full 2,000,0001. a-year upon the
people of England--that this tax consists almost