tot the Grand Secretary Li to Shanghai and his prolonged sojourn in our midst should, we think, prove of much value to the future relations of China with foreign countries. The causes which led His Excellency to come here in the first instance are, in themselves, regrettable; butthereisa brighter side to the question, and we are j fied in hoping that a certain amount of good will result from that which is of itself almost purely evil. For a long time Li Hung-chang las figured before the public as the one mau in China almost wholly free feom the trammels, of tradition in so far as they stand in the way of progross,—the one man who is able to grasp the syllogistic method of reasoning and apply it with due force to politics, Ho is able to see through the foolish and unenlightened opposition of his countrymen to railways, and to appreciate to their fullest extent the advantages which would accrue to China from the extension of foreign manufactures upon Chinese soil. Till he came to Shanghai, however, his opinions were more or less based on theory. "Even his intercourse with foreigners, unusually free though it had beou—for His Excellency is, of all mandarins, the most accessible—nover went very far beyond receiving them at his Yaméa in Tientsin, and questioning them on matters, with which he had no personal familiarity in penetrating style characteristic of him, Foreign comforts, it is true, he has always appreciated, as some of our local furnishing-houses can testify; but it may safely be assorted that he saw little or nothing of foreign enterprise and foreign social life before he came Shanghai, Even under these ciroumstances it is possible that his experience of such matters would have continued small bad it not been for the shrewd and kindly action of the United States Consul-General in inviting him to "take a drive." The event appears in itself of almost trivial import until we consider the circumstances which attended the excursion and the influence which the illustrious guest is known to exercise over public opinion in China, For months pnst foreign enterprise in Shanghai has been made the object of regular and systematic attack by the Government at Poking, acting through their too-willing agent the Viooroy of the Liang Kiang, Blows have been aimed at our silk-filatores and our cotton-industries, and every possible impediment put in the way of all who have manifested any desire to extend commerce in similar directions. Under these circumstances it is highly gratifying to read the details we have published respecting the visit of the Grand Seoretary to one of the most important silk-filatures in this settlement, So far from expressing his indignation and surprise that such outrageous proceedings should be permitted to go on unchecked, His Excellency avowed himself delighted with everything ho saw cross-examined the managers and om-ployes of the establishment upon the details of their business, and appeared much gratified with the assurance that the processes he witnessed wore being taught without difficulty to some hundreds of Chinese, who were thus making a comfortable livelihood and acquiring knowledge calculated to be of great uso to China. I¢ will not be soon forgotten; either, that the Grand Seoretary: was the first to set the Waterworks in motion, by tarning on. the. first. water into the cylinder and. then
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.