2st March, Wizz Japan is vindicating her claim to a recognised position in the comity of nations by insisting on her rights under the international laws which regulate extradition, and continues to hanker hesitatingly after the abolition of extra-territoriality, as the last surviving reflection on her national dignity, it is interesting to note how China is pursuing a similar policy of self-assertion, though along a very different line of country. It is natural enough that there should be divergence of method, if only because the amative sake are so radically distinct; Japan cing actuated by ambition or the wish to advance, and China by obstinacy or the wish to recede. In other words, whatever apparent awakenings and revolutions of thought have taken place in the Middle Kingdom through force of circumstances during the past decade, there is reason to believe that the dream of the most powerful section of Chinese statesmen is to restore the old Saturnian reign and to revert in principle to the traditional policy of "China for the Chinese," which has never really died out in the hearts of this conservative people.
The extreme vitality of this sentiment is only emphasised by the many mau-vais quarts dheure through which it has had to pass. As long ago as the "forties," it was seemingly moribund, when our ships demolished the Bogue forts and our troops occupied Canton. But it revived as we know and was again brought to death's door when the Taku forts were silenced and the allied forces knocked at the gates of Peking.
Many doubtless believed the final coup de grace had been given when the flags of France and England floated over the Anting Men, Yiianmingyiian was in flames, one Emperor had fled and died and the advisers of his young successor had admitted the representatives of Western Powers to reside at the very doors of the Imperial Palace. And indeed the belief seemed justified, when the Treaty of Tientsin threw open new ports to our trade and sanctioned travel throughout the Empire, under certain restrictions as regarded private individuals but theoretically unrestricted when the traveller was a diplomatic or consular official. We then began to hear about the "multiplication of points of contact" whereby Western and Eastern were to acquire mutual familiarity and become as brothers: we were even taught to look forward to a day when the foreigner, like the Irish lady with the jewellery, might roam from end to end of the country unprotected and needing no protection, The dream lasted ff teen years and we woke with a start to hear that a British consular officer had been murdered in Yunnan in spite of the Yamen passport he carried, in violation of the pledges for his safety given by Peking officials and provincial authorities and in defiance of treaty stipulations and international law. The sentiment we had scotched at Taku and Peking was alive again.
Yhe murder of Margury was taken advantage of to aim another blow at exclusion; we raised the number of open ports to twenty, established moreover the right of calling at certain points on the Yangtze, located a consular resident in the interior of Szechuan, claimed the privilege of appointing another at Tali in Ytinnan, and obtained the consent of China to our sending a mission to liber if we chose. These desirable objects were attained without moving a soldier or a gunboat, and we congratulated ourselves on the success of moral suasion. China was quick to perceive that the political maxim underlying our present, and likely to underlie our future action cree is no remedy;" and that moreover it was beginning to be borne in upon us that China could offer us poten tilities of alliance not to be despised. It is scarcely surprising that under these circumstances, the national sentiment should revive with increasing vigour. The abortive "reprisals" of 1884-5 only served to confirm the impression that the days of serious coercion were over, and must have convinced China that by a proper manipulation of the cards she might practically secure herself against organised interference from without, and by skilfully playing off one of the great Powers against the other, be in a position to peacefully resume her own peculiar policy.
In the meanwhile she has learnt several useful lessons. One is the power of money to nullify undesirable concessions of which she has found reason to repent; she thus ridded herself of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.