The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-09-04
FL RST EDITION
CHINA AND TIE UNITED STATES.
More Co1nments by the English Press ON
the Recent Treaty.
rdon Spectator, August Is.


of policy upon which the Court of Pekin is
entering, aud which, If the European powers,
and more especially Great Britain, are not firm,
will lead at no distant period to fourth or
fifth Chinese war. The Empress Mother, the
Premier Wan Sung-a really able politician OF
the high tory sort-and Prng Kung, the three
persons among whom the sovereignty Is AT PIE
sent in commission, who direct all Chiuese
policy and regulate all Chinese administration
with a power as complete as that of the
Gar. are evidently penetrated with the
cial world. In opposition to the people, who
like the trade and the wealth and the movement
the foreigners bring, they desire, first OF ALL TO
expel them, and, if that may not be, to keep
them on the seaboard. They feel iDstlnchvely,
and no doubt Justly that foreigners are dis
turbng element in the empire, weakening the
respect for tradition, impairing the despotism
Of he officials, bringing in ideas and ways and
forces dangerous to divinely arranged order.
They regard them, in TACT, very much as Rome
regards free thinkers, not so much as noxious
individuals, as instructive, incura6e foes OF the
system she desires to maintain. Aided by some
European advice, consequently, they have
drawn up a treaty which reads very plausible;
have induced Mr.. Seward to sign it, without
thinking too much of California, where one of its
clausesWill create some little sensation; and have
now submitted it 10 the difetent courts of
Europe. BY the first clause the Chinese Govern
ment undoes the whole work of thirty years,
abolishes what are known in Turkey as the
Capitulations, aud in China as the Consular
Jurisdictions, and places all foreigners once
the case in Turkey, it is quite certain that China
is not yet fit for this change; that from the day
it is effected the Foreign Offices of Europe will
be inundated d, with wit jqst complaints of ;. local
total cessation OF trade-thereby exposing India
to bankruptcy, and the British ESchequer to
the loss of the tea reVenue-or, demands
ported by force. The mandarin class hate
Europeans too heartily to be trusted with
power over them, and it is better for. China
itself that this hatred should be neutralized by
treaty arrangements than that every private
quarrel should involve danger OF war. II the
consular courts are not strong enough they can
be strengthened, or exceptional powers placed
in the hands OF the embassies; but to abolish the
jurisdiction at once is to enable the mandarins
TO edge the Europeans slowly out of China. it
may be said that the Americans are willing to
ers, least dreaded by the Chinese. First because
they have never fought Pekin; and secondly,
because their intercourse with the empire has
been very slight. To say nothing of other coun-
tries the trade of China with Great Britain and
her colonies was in 1866
Imports 922,729,l2S Exports . f14, ,76e,295
while her trade with the United States was:%
Imports $50 Exports 92,COO,l11
Total e., ,O91, ,s9l
and there the connection between the two
countries begins and ends Any treaty not in
itself discredltable is, therefore, Indifferent to
Americans, or, if they can gam an apparent
advantage over Europe, pleasing, while the
main object OF Europe, for which she has fought
SO often, is free ingress into the interior aud
secure residence when there established.
Articles2, g. A, 5, G, land are harmless, though
needless every provision they contain having
been secured by different treaties, and, we are
bound TO add, violated in spirit both by Eng
land and the United States-by England in per
mltting Australia TO levy tax on Chinese i'm
migrants, and by the Union in allowing the
ourages on Chinese in California against which
the republican journals are now SO warmly
protesting. The spirit OF the treaty is con-
TONED in the first and tenth clauses. the
latter of which pledges every foreign GO
vernment to refrain from pressing railroads,
telegraphs, or other material improvements
upon the government of Pekin. That govern.
ment is 10 introduce them at its own discre.
tion-that is, whenever the sovereign junta at
Pekn thinks the free introduction of Eurooeans
into China conducive to their authority, a
period never likely to arrive. The clause is q
new diplomatic barrier against internal i'm
provement, set up without the smallest neces-
sity, the European Governments having neither
the inclination nor the power TO force Western
civilization on the Chinese Court. Not mile
OF railway could be built in China without its
hearty cooperation, for not mile of route
could be obtained without its distinct permls
sion. Any Cnigaman who sold his field for
such a purpose without Mandarin permission
would be summarily, executed. Even Russia
could not overcome the resistance the Chinese
Government could offer to any such undertak-
ing, and the only object of erecting this diplo-
matte barrier is TO prevent the social and moral
pressure towards improvement which arises
at Pekin, from the employment of
Europeans both in the revenue and
War departments, and from the growing popu-
laritY of Europeans among the people. Nothing
annoys the court more than the hearty accord
among the embassies, which makes every serious
suggestion an identical note" from all Europe;
and 1t is 10 break up this accord that the Pre-
mier has struck up this sudden friendship with
Washington. Nothing, again, Is so offensive to
the e'maodarins as the moral hold which the for
eigners acquire over their own subjects, hold
displayed In the rush of wealthy Cinnamon to
Shanghae, where it is difficult to ''squeezen
them, and in the lrendlness strongly displayed
by the people of Canton, city closed to us for
quarter OF a century on the pretense that the
people we're unchangeably hostile. We shelled
the town. opened 1T, and from that day to this
have found the population as obging, as acces-
sibse and as eager TO do Profitable business as
those OF any Continental city,
The truth of the whole matter is that we must
either retire from China altogether, to the last
ing injury of the Chinese themselves, or insist
quietly but pcrsistently on receiving in China
the treatment we should receive in any other
organized State-permlssion, that is, TO go and
come, to trade and build, with full certainty
that in the event of any dispute the officials,
Judicial and other, Will meet out some endurable
measure of justice. The day that is secured the
Capitulations ought 10 be abolished; but the
day IS still far oil and will never be secured if
Americans assist Chinese Eldons to return TO
the exploded policy OF isolation. II is to
facilitate such return that this treaty has
been drawn up, and we trust Lord Stanley, who
rs not often taken in by pseudo philanthropy
v MI understand the situation sufficiently to
m, IKE the most eXpedient reply, namely that
no alteration whatever can be MADE IN treaties
pure based ut so much cost and with so much
treas, IRE without careful consultation with our
repres entatves in China and with the remaining
treaty Powers. III while commencing this con-