The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1878-07-16
CHINESE ARROdANGE.

his only In very recent yearSthat tie
arrogance and self-conceit of Chinese states.
men have admitted the right of foreign
officials to correspond and deal with them
on anything like terms of equality. So
great, indeed, have been the difficulties
arising out of this matter that it was found
necessary to devote to it separate article
Of the treaty signed at Nanking on August
20, 1S42, by which the modes of address
and correspondence between British and
Chinese officials were definitely settled, and
their relative ranks were further clearly de-
fined by the seventh article of the treaty of
Tien-tsing, June 2G. 1858. Since the latter
date, at any rate, matters have, on the
whole, worked pretty smoothly in this re-
spect, and it is but rarely that one hears
of any intentional want of courtesy on the
part of Chinese officials toward their British
cohpeers. Still the intercourse between
them has always been of a more or less
restricted nature, and even her Majesty's
Minister, though himself most eminent
Chinese seholar-equally with the repre-
sentatives of other nationalities at the Court
of Peiing-has not been able, from the
hhexible rules of Chinese etiquette, to cul-
tivate friendly relations with the high
officers of state resident at the capital,
unless they Glanced to be also members of
the Tsungll Yamen, the Office which was
specially constituted after the last war for
the transaction of business with Western
nations. On the Goth of September, 1875,
however, there appeared in the manuscript
copy of the Peking Gazette Gas foreigners
term the Chingpao) a memorial from the
Prince of Kung and his colleagues, the
Ministers of the Tsungh Yamen, in which
they went with some detail into the ques-
ton of personal intercourse between Chi
nese and foreigners, and they prayed for a
"decree which, as declaration from the
Throne, might dissipate mems doubts, and
hinder suspicion and misunderstandings."
Among other things, they state that the
Ministers OF foreign powers residing in the
capital have remarked to them that ''as
visits were never exchanged between the
high officers of state departments and the
representative of foreign nations, it was
not astonishing that when their authori-
ties kept thus aloof, the lower orders should
make light of the officials and people of
foreign nations" In regard to this asser-
tioN. the Prince and his colleagues affirm
that in pursuing this course of action, or,
perhaps, we ought to say inaction, the high
officers Of departments have simply con-
formed most scrupulously with the princi-
pie "that officials have no intercourse with
foreigners" which was laid down in the
Ii CHI, the Book of Obligation and Observ-
unces, more commonly called the Book of
Rites, work for which all Chinese affect
the most profound reverence. Circum-
stances, however, they think, alter cases,
and having regard to existing relations
with foreign countries, they are of opinion
that "though it is not possible to treat for
eign ENJOYS in every way as they are treated
in foreign States, Eastern or Western, still
1t does not, for all that, appear necessary
that there should be no intercourse with
them whatever" The language used is,
perhaps, not very gracious, but, after all,
the principle thus ungraciously admitted is
q great blow to the ancient prejudices of
the Chinese high mandarinsy who, as a
class, are trained in the very stra 1st sect
of bigotry, and view all conc nc9ssions to the
''ou.side barbarian" with the utmost dis
taste.-Good Words.