Eicurr years ago, in 1793, one of the ablest monarchs of the Ta-tsing dynasty accorded an audience to Lord Macart~ ney. It is true the Embassy travelled, unwittingly, with the words "tribute-bearer" inscribed on its flags; but the tributary Kotow was dispensed with, on Lord Macartney's flat refusal to perform it. The concession was perhaps due in some degree to curiosity; and the interview took place, notin the Reception Hall of the Imperial Palace, but in the summer garden at Zehol. Still it took place. Foreign nations have since advanced greatly in power and knowledge, while China has retrograded. Kienlung, flattered by a Jesuit writer of the day, as "Te meilleur lettre qui soit dans son Empire et lo plus grand monarque clu monde," was at any rate an able and rigorous ruler. The present Emperor is a lad who may have good qualities, but of whom we really know nothing yet eighty years later, in 1873, the collective diplomatic talent of Peking is trying still to find the silken skein that shall lead into his presence. It is true they ask a more formal interview than Kienlung was willing to accord but if foreign diplomacy during the last ten years had been firm and con sociated, ought the slightest doubt or hesitation to have remained, that an audience could be had whenever the demand was made? The very fact of our presence in Peking is a self-stultifying answer. We are there because we were strong enough to overcome Chinese opposition to our getting there; and yet uncertainty is still felt whether the Representatives of nations superior to China in every art of peace and war, will be permitted to approach her Ruler without acknowledgment of inferiority. A joint request for an interview was addressed to the Tsungli-yamun, by the Envoys of America, England, France, Germany and Russia, on the occasion of theEmperor's accession; yet, two months after the event, we still do not learn that the interview has been accorded.
A reply was, we believe, returned that the Emperor was willing to receive the Ministers; it was even said that he had consented to dispense with the kotow. Still the interview does not happen. Is the usual Chinese plan being resorted to; are negociations for an equivalent ceremonial being spun into impracticable cobwebs, or are we to believe that the visit to the Imperial Tombs is the sole cause of delay Peking itself is absolutely silent on the subject. The Gods of Olympus were not so far separated from mortals, as the Foreign Ministers at Peking from their fellow-residents in China.
In the meantime, we hear that the Emperor has been seen by foreigners—not face to face in a courteous interview, as Kienlung was seen, not even openly in the street as any European Monarch can be seen—but through a hole in a pane of paper in a Chinese window. Yet what we hear of the Emperor does not seem to show that he, himself, is so much inclined to seoresy nor does an incident which is reported to have occurred in Peking some weeks ago, between the Prince of Tun and [a member of the Customs service, look as though his relations were quite madly. bent on isolation. The Emperor travel. led in a chair which, if not quite open, was so lightly veiled in gauze that the covering could not be detected; and the fact was, we are told, a subject of much comment among the Chinese. The Prince of Tun, who is regarded as heir-apparent to the throne pending the appearance of a direct successor, pointedly left the road to address a Foreigner who had courteously turned aside to let his cortege go by. Does not all this look as though the obstructiveness lay with the Literate rank and file who hedge in the Emperor, rather than with himself and his relations. The mandarins dread foreign intercourse for him, as they dread it for the people. It might enable both to see the hollowness of their own pretensions.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.