and under, One Tel; each additional is One Mace, One-half' of these charges for repetitions. Contracts may be made for 3 months, of longer, payable in advance. SUBSCRIPTIONS received, and Single Coptes Sold, by Guonos Sraner, selves that the Ministry at Home has found time to forget party disputes and look after the interests of British subjects abroad. Our mails have been accelerated; the postage on our newspapers has been halved; a tardy boon in the shape of a retiring allowance after a reasonable period of service in the Far East has been conferred on the Consular Service; and, last and not least, Shanghai has been male a port of British registry, and it will become possible to effect transfers of vessels to the British flag without the difficulties and uncertainties which have hitherto stood in the way. We should really not be surprised if our great bugbear, the Bar at Woosung, were now to claim some part of the attention of Her Majesty's Foreign Office, and that at least Her Majesty's Minister at Peking should receive instructions to insist on the Chinese Government proceeding with the necessary works, The Overland Mail has a sensible article on this subject and Sir Rutherford Alcock's indefensible position with regard to it; and this in a paper mainly devoted to Indian topics shows that these minor evils are at last beginning to claim a hearing. It seems to be acknowledged that we have no great evils to complain of, except such as are inseparable from the course of trade. We all know to our cost that China trade has had many fluctuations within the last few years, f: yot these fluctuations all seem to have been on the one side. The changes have not been from profit to loss and back again, but rather from slight to severe losses. Falling markets at home have been supplemented by inactivity in China, so that, whether the trade was one of export or of import, in either case a dull market stared the merchant in the face. In Europe, political cireumstances have no doubt had their effect, though social causes have mainly been at work. In China much of the stagnation is the undoubted effect of the official will never afford information as to the financial statistics of his office. Still the Foreign Customs' reports do more or less enable us to gauge the state of trade, and it may be described as in the last degree unsatisfactory. Ibis not alone that foreign imports show no perceptible increase, such as might naturally be expected in so large a country as China, so lately opened to foreign trade, but it is that native traffic in such staples as sugar, beancake, &c., which form the backbone of native trade, shows decided marks of retrogression. It cannot be urged that external circumstances have had any part in producing this depre: sion, The country has been in a state of peace externally and internally; the weather on the whole has been favour= able; and crops, taking the average of the empire, have perhaps been rather better than usual. There has certainly been no external force brought to bear; the Chinese Government has been allowed unmolested to travel on in its own way. Even when undoubted interforences with treaty rights were attempted, in the majority of cases complaints ended in mild remonstrances.
The result has certainly not been satisfactory. China has been let alone, and has succeeded in getting affairs into a worse tangle than ever. If we had made a more stringent use of our position, it is undeniable that not only would the general position of affairs have improved, but we should have been regarded in a more favourable light by those whom we had, however much against their wills, directly benefited. Ho must have a small knowledge of human nature, who supposes that a nation will be grateful for being afforded the means of ruining itself without molestation.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.