'THe correspondence on the question of Diplomatic and Consular assistance to British merchants in China and Japan, which we reproduce from the China Mail, will be interesting to many besides our own countrymen, The nature and general scope of the instructions given by the two last Foreign Seoretaries to their representatives in Peking and Tokio were known some time since, and we now have their specific terms before us, What will probably strike most readers is the decision which distinguishes the instructions of Lord Salisbury and the flabbiness of Lord Rosebery's despatches. Lord Salisbury thority to Mr, O'Conor to act in support of British interests, shoald certain circumstances arise, and the Charge Affaires would not have the least diffi. culty in seeing what he wasexpeoted tod Bat, although Lord Rosebery bad, parently, at first, taken Lord Salisbury's view, he was in somewhat of a differ ent humour by May, whau he told Mr, O'Conor to hold temporarily aloof, adding hat nothing in his despatch was to be understood as inconsistent with the instractiouscouveyed by his predecessor, Lord Rosebery evidently wished to make things pleasant all round, and not to run any risk of offending Berlin, where the political extravagancies of his chief were little relished and bad brought the Liberal party into the black books of the Chancellor, and where the Gladstone Cabinet wanted to effect a rapprochement, He bad the Burma question to settle with China, and probably no very clear idea of how it was to be done, and he bad Mr, Plunket in Japan and Mr, O'Conor in China shaking their heady over the ations in the sleepy ufficinl life Peking and Tokio, whioh Lord Sal bury bad ordered, at the intigation British merchants and Chambers of Commerce. Lord Rosebery soon bee gan to show weakness, The Correspondence opens with an extract from a dispatch from Mr, Plane koft, in Tokio, dated May 25th, 1885, in which be repeats an assertion often made that Germans and other foreignera in Jspan, and we add in China—work at lower rates than wede, Whatie Me. Plankett's authority for this? Has he ever taken the trouble to ascertain whee ther Germans and other foreigners really do work at lower rates than Euglishmen? It may be true that the item of commission on business which dono in China and Japan is sometimes charged at a lower rate by foreigners than by British and Amorioan firms of standing. But wherever that is the case it is highly probable that an equivalent for the reduced commission is found in some other way, So far as we see, the greatest economy, consistent with the proper conduct of business, is practised {by merchants of all untionalities, and from what we hear of the state of affairs in Japan we have no doubt that it is the same there, It could not be otherwise in either country while profits are so small. Mr, Plunkett's state. ment refers to a state of affairs that passed away ten to twenty yenrs ago; jand we should be sorry to think' that the commercial information gathered by the representative of Great Britain in Japan has not been brought down to ® more recent time, When "fall" commissions of 5 per cent, were cheerfully paid by English shippers, we believe that foreigners sometimes worked at lower rates. It would be interesting, and instructive also, whi it might be considered to fall. within the scope of recent instructions to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.