Tris rather remarkable, after the long lal, how suddenly and in how many different shapes the China question has spring into interest and" importance, at Home. Both in England and America, the same vague craving has arisen, to do some imaginary "justice," which Shorard Osborn deprecated when writ ing that, both "in China and at home, there was a certain set who had far more sympathy for the poor benighted heathen, than for the hard working Christians of their own country—people who are always trying to. legislate for indoo, or Chinaman, instead of to the well-being of their own compatriots." And in pursuance of this craving, a course of policy is being followed which is really unjust towards both Christian and Heathen. The interests of both lie in developing the resources of the country; but Western Politicians, in their ignorance of the situation, are encouraging the Celestial Government to persevere in stagnation, They persist in the error which was exposed by the terse writer we have before quoted—of believing that the Chinese reason as we do. Captain Osborn's experience of China was that, when a foreigner "had reasoned upon any Chinese question, the best thing for him to do, having ai at his conclusion, is to say. " But the Emperor, mandarins and Chinamen will come to an exactly opposite decision, and act accordingly." Most people who have had any experience of China will agree in this maxim, and endorse Captain Osborn's experience that he "never remembers a Foreigner who took an European, and, he grants, a rational view of China, who was in the end right." People at home are again reasoning from an European point of cumstatices and modes of thought differ every conceivable point, and the result is—stagnation, where they had looked fou progress.
ut another phase of the China question, as important perhaps as that of our policy, is thnt which is now exciting so much attention in Californin—the pro-case immigration of Chinese into Ame-yea. Our San Francisco correspondent accused us, in his last letter, of taking a narrow view of the question, when we spoke ut the immigrants as a desirable servants. This view is admitted—if only they came in moderate numbers; but they are flowing in by tens of thousands; and alarm is felt at the possible social results of such an enormous in-flax of people, alien in. every respect from the present occupants of the soil. Already, the white population of California is only 600,000 ahead of the Mongols; and it is apprehended that, at the present rate of immigration and multiplication, the numbers will be soon be equalised. Chinese are excladed from political power—the new American treaty notwithstanding, and our correspondent asks what is the influence in a country "of a population of slaves, or serf; or servants, or people kept down by a dominant race. Has it not always been demoralising in the extreme, ramous to freedom and good government? And what if these Chinese Californians and the masses of Eurasians or Amerasians that are beginning to spring from them, become the dominant class themselves; will this mongrel breed give us the men to wield the axe in the tempest, when the Chinamen have not the courage to go on deck, to stand by the fires when the Chinamen are skulking in the dark, to when the Chinamen would let her sink?" Our correspondent accuses us of having taken a narrow view; but it seems to us that he has taken rather a short one. Is it not likely that, if the evils he foresees do arise from the presence of a population of helots, the good sense of the American people will free them as it has freed the negroes? Unquestionably, the presence of serfdom is injurious in a country; bat are not the habits of American thought sufficiently clear, liberal, and vigorous, to perceive and remedy the evil before it has wrought the ill our correspondent apprehends It was argued at the last meeting of the Asiatic Society, that the difference between Chinamen and Europeans is in degree, not in kind, and is obliterable by education. May it not be hoped that the new conditions of a Chinaman's life in America will modify these dil and obviate those peculiar render the whites apprehensive of his social influence. The solution of the difficulty seems to us to lie mainly with the Americans themselves. They might as well try to stop the tide, apparently, as to stop this immigration; so it remains for them to frankly accept the position, and to give the new-comers every chance of improvement in the healthy atmosphere of freedom. And it is on the course pursued in this respect, that the answer to our correspondent's second question must depend. The Chinamen and their offspring will never become the dominaus class, unless they do become men fit to brave danger—unless they develope the qualities which now give the European his supremacy. If they do reach that high standard of energy, enterprise, courage and cultivation, any influence their numbers may give will not be harmful. Until they reach the Western standard, they can never become dominant, and no danger from their domination can therefore arise. It is easy to understand that the question is viewed, in America, as one of extreme importance; and it is one which needs the limits of an essay rather than a leading article, for its discussion. We can only pretend to touch lightly on the salient points that suggest themselves. Wo have said that the solution of the question lies chiefly with the Americans themselves; and the most powerful engine they have at their command is education.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.