Ir it is difficult to coo ourselves as others see us, it is no less difficult to seo others as they see themselves and it is this difficulty which is at the bottom of half the errors made in Enropenn policy towards China, and of half the nonsense that is written and talked by well-meaning theorists in support of their favourite notions of justice, and in deprecation of any and every act of firmness. Even the Con. servative party in France complains that the strictures of the English Press upon the policy of Marshal MacMahon are delivered from a purely English point of view, and as though English people were in question, without regard to the different circumstances and character of the French, And if this is true when a nation living, as it wore, next door is in question—a nation with whom we have more intercourse than any other in the world, how much more is it likely to be true of one so far distant and so different in every respect: as the Chinese, If writers in the Nineteenth Century and members of the Anti-Opium Association would conceive that it is not only nob an English, but nob even European country they are writing about, they might succeed in imagining that © policy which would savour of harshness towards a European nation, may be necessary in regard to China; and that the system which evokes such emphatic language from our Consuls may differ somewhat from that which they have before their eyes in England, For France to urge, and insist, and make a diplomatic question of a claim by a French against an English subject, would be both insolent and ridiculous, because it is perfectly certain that the claim would be fairly tried, adjudicated, and honestly enforced by the English Courts of law. It is because no such thing would happen in China that diplomatic pressure, and what sounds to these pseudo-philanthropists dicta torial Inngnage, becomes necessary, Lot us take the following passngo from Mr, Consul Forrest's Into report on the trade of Swatow, as an instance of our Theimpossibility, he writes, "of obtaining redress against creditors "ox defaulters, the universal system of "long credits under which trade is con-"queted, and other local reasons, have "caused them (foreigners) to relinquish "it, The native traders are for the most "part simply transit agents, who fo: "small consideration pass through th.
Customs, and forward to their destis "tion in the interior, goods and opin "bought by their native correspondents "in Hongkong. Of the wealthier hongs, "several are under the influence of, or "owned by, the higher officials of the cir-"ult, especially the brigadier-general, "As junks coming from Hongkong, "shore those hongs have agencies, only "pay duties at the Chinese-managed "Customs, and most probably very little "there, foreigners cannot compete with "goods brought by them." And again,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.