The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1868-07-15

people of each State, all voting.
Great Social Revolution-The Treaty with
China.
The terms Of treaty between China and this
country have been agreed upon by the Chinese
Embassy and the State Department, and the
document now awaits the action of the Senate
BY this treaty the ports of China are made free
to the commerce of the United States and all
embarrassments and restrictions to trade are
set aside; citizens of the United States will be
permitted to reside in Chinese cities and engage
in trade there, and will be protected in all their
rights Of person and property. But more
important, perhaps, than all the rest is the pro-
vision that opens to our enterprise the naviga-
ton of the great rivers of the empire. Not
only shall our people be able to trade with all
the ports on or near the coast, as we now do
with Liverpool, Havre or Marseilles, but they
| may also push into the interior of the country
| and make the familiar acquaintance of the
| strange people that have been the mystery of
the world for so many centuries. They may
meet the Chinese actually and in their homes
not as they are qualified by contact with Euro
peans in the cities in which they have hitherto
been mostly known-and may organize. the
| trade in Chinese products by direct intercourse
with the producers of the commodities. On
the other hand our government gives to the
| Chinese certain advantages in trading on our
Pacific coast, guarantees to the people of that
nation residing here the protection in their
rights due to the subjects of an equal Power,
with ultimate naturalization, and agrees to aid
| China against its enemies in the ordinary terms
that is, stand the friend of that nation if other
Powers cndeavor to extort undue privileges by
the common means of intimidation. This is a
good broad programme for the future inter-
course of our people with the acute, indus
trious and thrifty myrads of the Flowery
| Land-iberal as it should be, and fair and the
Senate should give it the necessary approval
without delay. In the same connection 1t is
well that the House has carried through the
legislation necessary to complete the Alaska
purchase; for this Chinese treaty and the
glimpse it presents Of the future of our Eastern
relations give an immensely increased value
to every inch of the Pacific coast of this Cont
nent.
In its results the making of this treaty will
prove the greatest social and commercial revo-
luton of the age. Its effect will be far greater
than was that of the discovery of America; for
while in literal truth it involves the discovery
of a new continent to the travel, the trade, the
active intercourse of life, we must remember
that that Continent is not an impenetrable
wilderness, peopled only by wild tribes,
without history, a literature, or any but the
more primitive natural laws, but is, on the
contrary, a land possessed of the Oldest living
civilization, the Oldest living language, laws
and philosophy; that it has a government
whose principles, while refined to an astonish
ing minuteness of detail, are wonders Of the
, simple action of the human mind; a govern
ment that is the only one on the earth, nearly,
not founded on the rottenness of priestcraft;
that il has nnumerable cities, from the people
of every one of which we may learn some
truth absolutely new to us and sure not to be
worthless that it has an unnumbered popu.
lation the thriftiest and most industrious on
the globe, and that is products az 4
Incompatible n value, and the necessaries o
civilized life everywhere. So rich is that East
ern World, and in such esteem have its product.
been held rom time immemorial, that th,
greatest discoveries, the greatest systems o
commerce, the greatest navies of history hav,
alike grown from the desire to secure those
products. Eagerness in this endeavor has beer
the stimulus to human activity in some of Its
grandest phases One Of the few facts pre-
served to us Of the commercial life of Greece il
the still attractive story of Jason aud the
Golden Fleece and the Colchis that Jason
voyaged to was only station on the ancient
route TO China, and his wonderful golden fleece
might well have been an anticipation of the
trade In raw silk. In times more within ken it
Is clearly perceptible that but for the stimulus
OF the desire to reach the East by other routes
than those that followed Jasons lead, the voy-
age around the Cape of Good Hope, with its
wonderful disclosures and lts ultimate change
Id the seats OF naval power, would never have
been made. Neither would Columbus have
demonstrated the form OF our planet Jodecd
that ilustrious navigator only stumbled on our
Continent in bis search for the one that we now.
by a piece OF natural justice, are effectively
opening to the world II, then, Europe and the
world was revolutionized, great powers cast
down and little ones built up by the discoverv
OF such field for activity and trade as our
Continent furnished in its wild state. what in
/ comprehensive changes may we not anticipate