To the Bditor of the Norra-Cura Darcy News.
Sm,—Yourpaperof this morning con! Mr. Consul Hughes's Notification to Br subjects to register themselves within this month or within a month of arrival in the Settlement. The consequences of omitting conformity to this illegal requirement are that British folk ' will not be entitled to protection or even recognition." It is with regard to this threat that I wish our authorities at home and in Pekin whose instructions this Notification, I take leave to call absurd, is issued, whether they have ever given a mom consideration to what would be the fate of a Consul in China who refused protection to a British subject, requiring it at hands, because he had not registered himaclf at the port where he was a resident. Suppose an Enelishman were illegally dealt with by a Chinese mandarin, or subjected to ill treatment by a Chinese mob, and both these things have occurred—would a British Consul dare to say, ' You are unregistered, and I cannot therefore interfere to protect your interests or to obtain justice for what you have suffered in your person?"
Supposing, again, that a Consul did act to an Englishman' in this manner; how long would Parliament, as the agent of a generous people jealous of the dignity and rights of all its members, allow him to hold his post, or any post in her Majesty's Service? I'am certain he would be quickly dismissed into a retirement that most people would think was merited.
The Minister at Peking must know this, and yet, I suppose, he has given directions that Notifications like that from our Consul shall be made from time to time at the treaty ports. It follows that he must know, also, that an attempt to refuse protection toa British subject on the ground of i tered could practically never into effect. To issue such a Notification is, therefore, in my humble opinion, to expose our Consuls to the ridicule of other nationalities, not to speak: of the official Chinese, and is of the same kind, and likely tobe thought as much of, as the threatening boards that one sees at home, on which warning m that ps and spring: plantations and woods legality as those.
Yours, ete., 5th January, 1882, Cosmrox Sense.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.