Tae wisdom of allowing foreigners to command the Customs Revenue cruisers, at Canton, has been questioned lately in. the South. 'There are two sides to the question. Any endeavour, on the part of the Chinese, to sappross piracy and uphold right rule and order, deserves encouragement and support the atoamers.belovging to the Viceroy of' Canton are a useful means to this evid, and any aid that we can lend him to make them efficient, is rightly due. The question is, whether the ships are always used for such commendable Purposes as suppressing piracy and quelling iniquitous insurrection. The officers commanding are very much at the mercy of the mandarins; they cannot know traly the merits of the quarrel they enter on'; and it has been questioned in Hongkong, whether they are not sometimes made instruments of oppression. The Daily Press mentions a case in which they were " sout to put down an insurrection, caused by the erection of a custom house to enable the mandarin: to levy taxes of whose collection the people strongly disapproved." Unquestionably this is a case in which their interference was to be deprecated. The Chinese would not discriminate between foreign steamers owned by their own viceroy, and foreign steamers, the property of, foreigners. The vessel is foreign, the commander is foreign; and possibly, as the Daily Press rather strongly puts it, "the foreigners thus engaged would be looked on as the hired Tallies of the mandarins," and a very bitter. feeling, proportioned to the hostility felt against the mandarins themselves, would be engendered. The action of the mau-darins may have been right, or it may have been wrong. We have no means of judging, but the multiplication of taxing stations is contrary in principle to the policy which.we desire to incalcate; and any participation byfforeigners, in measures designed to impose new squeezes on an unwilling people, is to be regretted. It is suggested, even, that the janks against which the action of the steamers is directed, may somotimes be not pirates, but traders resisting a squeeze. The difficulty is, that they do not know, and cannot well get to know.
The point is a difficult one; for. that commanders of Chinese gunboats should claim to accept or refuse a task Inid on them, is next to impossible. The appearance of foreign force on, an unpopular side is to, be deprecated, bat "the viceroy.conld not tolerate that his officers should neglect his orders because they seemed to them an fitting, The Vaily Press says, "if Europeans. are.permitted to go into the Chinese revenue cruisers, some steps should be taken, to regulate the action of those vessels, and to prevent our od name being endangered by our ing constantly mixed up in, putting down a number of petty rebellions and risings, and thus increasing' the strong enmity of the factions whom are instrumental in opposing and imes oppressing." But this, is, in stance, very neatly a suggestion for king the' famous, Lay-Osborn con-that the ships should be out of mandarin control. Unless cases come to light in which the viceroy has notoriously misapplied his forces, we. think there is hardly room for diplomatic interference. 'The eraisers are nominally Customs cruisers, and a good deal of responsibility in regard to their employment falls on the Commissioner who must generally. be neral idea of' the merits of a case in question. Chinese officials have a wholesome dread of din-to excite commotion in their district is one of the blackest crimes, in the eyes of Peking. They rather affect petty acts of oppression and extortion, than open violence. Though we admit, therefore, the inconvenience pointed out by the Daily Press, of foreigners appearing to be instruments of mandarin oppression, we think the possible evil is more than counterbalanced by the cer tain good. The Canton gunboats are very usefal in suppressing piracy; it would bea pity to impugn a valuable, force, unless in onse of glaring misdirection. If a check can be devised against such misdirection, well; bat a possible controlling agency seems difficult to find.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.