We print below a re-translation of Chang Chih-tung's memorial, which clears away all the obscurity which pervaded the latter half of the translation previously published.
What Chang Chih-tung advises h perial master to do now seems sensible enough. It is, in short, to abandon for the present the claim of China to Kuldj to prepare for a defensive war in case Russia holds China to the Treaty of Livadia, to execute Ch'ung How, and to appeal to Europe for moral support.
We invite our readers' attention to the striking. language of the four paragraphs with which the memorial concludes; indeed the whole of the translation, as we now produce it, will well repay the trouble of perusal.
I, Your Majesty's servant, Chang Chih-ung, on my knees address the Throne looking upward I implore the Sacred glance on my memorial regarding an important treaty which the country ought not to have to accept, and the timely precautions which should be taken to guard against national disgrace. I have reverently weighed in my mind the gravity of the issue, and with the utmost sincerity I submit my views.
have lately read in the Peking Gazette that, as a treaty had been concluded with Russia, by which Your Majesty's Ambassador had dishonoured his commission, Your Majesty has commanded the Court officials to consult together. Of this treaty I have heard by rumour the general purport, and as I am anxious and distressed in the extreme, I beg reverently to address Your Majesty and the Empresses-Regent on the momentous issues of its acceptance or rejection.
With the exception of the most glaring blunders in the eighteen articles of the new treaty I shall leave it, in other respects, unnoticed. These are as follows By an overland trade route from Chia Yii-kuan direct to Hankow, vid the cities of Si An and Hanchung, the vulnerable points of Kansu and Shensi. and the up river sections of Ching and Ch'u (Hupeh, ete.) are all threatened. Trading places, in daily increasing numbers, will luxuriate like branching weeds, news will travel everywhere, and although our frontier be guarded, we shall have lost the very heart of the country. This is the first concession to be refused.
The Manchurian provinces are the cradle of the Lnperial Family, and the city of Petuné is the centre of the province of Kirin, If Your Majesty permits it to be approached by Russian ships, the concession will be tantamount to throwing the whole of Manchuria open to the Russians. They will then be close to Peking, our northern frontier (lit. head and shoulders) will be defenceless and exposed, and we shall have voluntarily retired 2,000 Li west of Sui Fen, for no reason whatever. The navigation of our inland waters has for years been sought in vain by foreign countries, and if we grant the privilege to Russia, other States will be guided, in their demands, by her example. This is the second concession to be refused.
When our Government does not insist on the payment of duties it is as a measure of relief to traders. But if in Sungaria, Kashgaria, and throughout Mongolia, the Russians are to be allowed to trade without paying any duties, Chinese merchants will in time be beggared. This is a small matter compared with what will follow. The feeble and poverty-stricken Mongols will only exist to be the victims of Rassian exactions, and the vast expen: i in the subjugation of the New Dominion will have been wasted for the sole benefit of the Russians. And, further, the trading establishments which they have opened at Kalgan and other places in the interior will gradually extend far and wide, so that, on the outbreak of hostilities," their communications will be complete from one end to the other, 10,000 li within our borders. This is the third concession to be refused.
The dependencies of Inner and Outer Mongolia are the bulwarks of China. The desert of Gobi, stretching for 10,000 li is a barrier set by Heaven to the Russians, and if they seek to invade our borders, they will find it, everywhere along the northern frontier, dificult and troublesome. But if the Russians are allowed to hold out extra pecuniary inducements to the Mongolians, who already act as their couriers and servants at the postal stations in Mongolia, and war does some day break out, the Russians will have simple and perfect communication by letter, their Commissariat and Treasury will be unimpeded; Ly their influence they will fan into rebellion our dependent States, and our tribes will act as Russian guides. ' This is the fourth von cession to be refused.
The treaty enumerates thirty-six barriers where the Russians are to have, the right to pass the frontier. They comprise ai line much too long; making it equally impossible for us to examine travelling caravans in time of peace, or to repel an invading army in time of war, This is the fifth concession to be refused.
There is no law which permits a merchant, of what nationality soever, to carry arms, What then can be intended by a declaration: in the treaty, made without the slightest reason, that every Russian may carry a gun? On a sudden entry of a crowd of a hundred or a thousand Russians, who will be able to distinguish soldier from mer chant? This is the sixth concession to be refused.
In all the clauses regarding trade and Anties the Russians get, in an underhand way, some advantage; other countries will expect similar privileges, and make similar demands, and the revenue of the Hankow Custom-house will show a yearly deft of millions of taels. This is the seventh concession to be refused.
In 1864 the boundaries of the New Dominion were defined by treaty. The Russians now wish to annex land within these boundaries, and to cut off our communications with the most southerly of the tight cities of Turkestan, The Northern Section of the New Dominion is barren and bare, but the southern cities are rich and populous. We contend for a stony desert, and abandon a fertile soil. We strive after fame, and meet with a real calamity. This is the eighth concession to be refused.
We are to allow the Russians to station Consuls at Ili, Tarbagatai, Cobdo, Ulinsutai, Kashgar, Uromtsi, Kuché, Hami, Turfan, Chia Yii-kuan, etc., and thus give them control of the north-west frontier, and of the whole of the New Dominion, With foreign officials come foreign merchants, and with foreign merchants come foreign soldi They will usurp our authority, and influence to begin with, and, in the course of time, our guests will have become our hosts. It will come to this, that the officials will be Russian, and we shall have no officials; the soldiers Russian, and we shall have no soldiers. By alow recognined.
every country the coasts and frontiers of China are the only places where the Consuls of foreign States are permitted to be stationed. But cities like Uliasut'ai, Cobdo, Urumtsi, Kuché, Hami and Chia Yit-kuan are within our frontiers, and with every country following the example set by Russia, the whole of the interior of the eighteen provinces of China will be overrun by foreign olticials. This is the ninth concession to be refused.
By allowing the Russians to return Ili to us, while they still stick proudly to the mountain passes on three sides of it, to its barriers within and without, and keep their hold of the heights which dominate the plains, we lose the keys of the country. Lop off from Ili the section to the west of the Koksu river, and to the north of Koerhmantou, and there remains no stretch of soil''to till, no pasture on which to graze our flocks, and of the wealth of the country there is nothing left. Kin-ting-szu_also, which has long been a Russian trading mart is not. to be returned to us, and becomes, by the treaty, a Russian possession. 'Thus the long highroad from the East (i.c., China proper) to Ili will pass through' a nest of Russians, and the country will be without an outlet. Few as are the people left in it, they too will be driven out by the Russians, the country will be deserted, and we. shall have thrown away Tls. 2,800,000 of useful money to get back an Ili without natural defences, without material resources, without a population, and without an outlet. And ull for what good? This is the tenth concession to be refused.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.