Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1858-09-04
China Thrown Open.

Under the terms Of the treaty recently
negotiated with China by the French and
British governments, the Empire is to be
thrown open to the trade of all foreign
powers. the Christian religion is to be tolerat-
ed, and diplomatic agents are to be received.
AS we anticipated, there is no restriction of
it's stipulations, but our country shares
equally the advantage with those who have
done all the fighting and exercised all the
diplomacy. The New York Express says:
American interests. moral and material,
will be among the first to be affected by this
re-adjustment of the relations of the Chinese
Empire with the outside world. Without
over-estimating. in anticipation, the specifica-
tions of the treaty in question, 1t is not asum-
ing too much to say that our merchants and
missionaries are about to have opened up to
their enterprise and zeal wide and more
promising field in the East than they have
ever had before. The ''Great Wall' which
has shut in the Central Flowery Land from
pretty much all intercourse with the outside
world hundreds of years past, is now, in fact,
leveled with the ground; and. with such an
inviting prospect before them, we are prepar-
ed to witness. ere long, such an infusion,
through British and American instrumental
ties. of AnglO-SaXon intelligence into the
ancient and decrepid institutions of China as
will gradually prepare the way for such
wholesale revolution in the habits. manners,
customs, and traditions of that singular and
mysterious people, as can hardly fail. in due
time. to bring them into a closer and more
friendly relationship than they have yet cared
to maintain with the rest of the human family.
The Chinese, it is unnecessary to say, are by
no means a barbarous people. They have an
intelligence and a learning of their own far
above the average of the other Asiatic race.
The scholarship, intellectual attachments, and
diplomatic skill of some of their high man.
darins are proverbial; their religion is of
milder and more benignant type than that of
the Brahmins of British India.
Our direct acquaintance with this people
within the past ten years has been sensibly
extended by their extensive emigration to the
gold mines of California, and the result of
that acquaintance, we believe, is such as to
produce by no means a mean impression OF
their aptitude for a higher degree of civiliza-
ton. Our countrymen on the Pacific, gene
rally speaking, have treated them well, and
though we are informed that the Chinaman
rarely, if ever, emigrates back to his own
country, yet, as il is almost impossible that
rumors Cf that friendly treatment have not
reached his native land, we may fatter our
selves that there are prepossessions there i'll
our favor which will enable us to take an
earlier and more cffectual advantage or the
treaty concessions than our English Or French
competitors, whose belIigerent demonstrations
against Canton, and other acts of hostility,
keep alive for while the most unpleasant
"reminiscences in the Chinese mind.
In this view, then. we have at the start an
appreciable advantage over the English. the
French, and the Russians; and, what is more.
that advantage has been obtained without
any warlike demonstration to speak of. Our
point is carried without expenditure ofblOOd
oil treasure. We have had our men-of-war at
Hong Kong and Shanghai, in the Yellow Sea
and up on the Pei-ho, to be sure, but, with
the exception of a few shots exchanged at the
taking of the Barrier Forts, and on one or
two other occasions, we have fortunately
never been compelled to bring their batteries
into play. So that. as far as the United
States is concerned, peace here hath won a
victory no less glorious than the war of the
allies; for we see by the telegraphic dispatches
that these latter are to be allowed nothing
more than we have gained. and that to neither
is reserved privileges, commercial or other
wise, which we are not equally to share.
| They are to be unidentified for the expenses
| of the war, but that is all.