Sin Ruruerrorp Atcock has an article fu the April number of the Asiatic Quarterly Review on the Marquis 'song's manifesto. There is not much that is former minister in Peking, and it has all new or interesting in the paper of the
the complacent wordiness which characterises his writings, Almost at the beginning he says that "the fact that a certain quaintness of form and phrasing remains after having passed through the trying alembic of translation is a proof that the original stamp of individuality and the mind from which the el" So that Sir Rutherford accepts the opinions proceeded has been well preserve
"Sleep and the Awakening" as a genuine production of the Marquis "Tseng, about which view of it some people out here have had considerable doubt. The title itself he goes on to say partakes of these characteristics. fe is not prepared to accept without considerable Marquis Tseng that China is no longer qualifications the contention of the
what she was even five years ago, and that each encounter, and especially the last with France, has, in teaching China her weakness, also discovered to her—hor strength. China, in perceiving the strength derived from her size in the capacity for bearing punishment which is only given to some nations, and to them a power of passive resistance to any attacking force where more active means are wanting." The exhaustion caused by two or three years of active hostility, was much more with the French than with the Chinese and consequently the victory rested with the latter. The size of China prevents an enemy inflicting serious wounds on the Government, without a vast expenditure of time and treasure. Sir Rutherford doubts of Li Hung-chang's efforts to create an army and a navy with the requisite armament and drilled efficiency, have during the last five years very materially increased the power of China to take the field against seasoned European troops, or the seas with vessels of war. To make good her own shortcomings in the way of defence against foreign assailants China should, in Sir Rutherford's opinion, form a defensive alliance with a first class maritime power, This is a necessity for her and, must continue to be so for many years. To England, he continues, an alliance with China would chiefly be desirable, or valuable, as affording a practically inexhaustible reserve of Asiatic fighting power, in addition to our own, on Russia's flank in the event of an advance on India. He joints out that Russia should not find it possible to seize or obtain by other means, an unfrozen port in the Corean coast or in the Corean Straits, from which the whole of the trade of China, foreign and native, could be destroyed. We may pass over what Sir Rutherford says about the necessity for reform in the civil administration and in the financial arrangements of China, merely saying that he contends that' this shoul be the first step towards the formation ofan army, and navy, and coast defences. About the probable intention of China to claim the abolition of exterritoriality on the next revision of treaties, Sir Rutherford says, that the Marquis's words "mean in effect the abolition of all exterritorial rights and more doubtful encroachments on these in the independent status claimed by certain of the Treaty Powers, for the concessions occupied by their respective subjects at the ports, with municipal rule, powers of taxation and independent police administration. These no doubt have been and are still claimed, but all on questionable grounds and in exaggerated forms. There is nothing in the clauses in any of the treaties with Foreign Powers which give warrant for such claims, or the exercise of wholly independent authority in municipal and territorial matters within the several concessions." Sir Rutherford has not a word to say of the impossibility of any Foreign Power leaving its subjects to the tender mercies of the Chinese officials, all that he remarks is that whenever the time comes when China will claim her sovereign rights, he is assured that China will not act precipitately. The article is not a striking one and is unlikely to attract attention at home, but the extract we have given, unqnalified as it is by any statement of the real condition of affairs in China may be seized upon by some of the busybodies and used against foreigners at the Ports whenever China "denounces" the treaties, and Sir Rutherford Alcock's former position, as Minister to Peking, might give weight to his words. The case for the retention of exterritorial rights, at least as long as the present generation of foreigners is in China, is sensibly put in a paper by Dr. Win. Lockhart, formerly of Shanghai, in the same mwunber of the Zeeiew. He says: So long as the administration of law is carried on by civil officers who practically receive no salary long as the emoluments of office and the payments of subordinates are derived through fees, exactions and bribes from applicauts—so long as office is held and judgment passed by men ignor rant of any but antiquated and obsolete forms of law, arbitrary in administration and aided by torture, so long as this system of judicature—if system it can be called—exists what possible security can be obtained that foreigners in China would get justice, and how can Western Powers ever consent to such a risk."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.