Sm,—Iu reference to the interesting article which appears in your issue this morning upon the elevation of Chungking to the rank and privileges of a treaty port," I should like to point out that the sale of our pioneer steamer to the Chinese Government can hardly be regarded as compromise" as far as the Chefoo Convention generally is concerned. In buying our which they did absolutely without y conditions attached, the Chinese simply relieved themselves from the immediate pressure of our demand to run, which, backed us it was by our Foreigh Office, gras Decuming inconveniently urgent. But, seeing that our Minister in China continued to be baffled by Chinese imperturbability, and that after three years' active negotiation the matter (much as the Tibetan ditticulty) had at length ved at an absolute impasse, our ign Office considered that, with the mer out of the way, negotiations would proceed more freely; and we see the result, i the new convention of which you have just given us the nowa, The Chinese have opened the port of Chungking at once without waiting for the navigability of the Upper, Yangtze by steam to be proved, which it was bound to be as a" condition precedent " under the terms of the original convention; and, on the other hand, the demand for innuediate permission for steamers to run has been waived. All depends under what conditions this concession has been allowed, and of these your telegram does not inform us clearly. "One can hardly believe that our Minister in Peking, knowing the Chinese character, would agree to the time for placing steamers on the route being left absolutely to the discretion of that Government; and I cannot but hope that we shall find, when the terms of the new clause are published, that a defini limit has been fixed after which Britis steamers will be allowed to make the attempt.
In any case it is satisfactory to know that a twentieth port has been added to the 19 already open, and that in the richest and one of the most_ interesting regions in China. 'That, after 14 years' interval, the clause in the Chefoo Convention regarding the opening of Chungking no longer remains a dead-letter is mainly due to the attempt of the Upper Yangtze Steam Navigation Company to give it concrete form by building the steamer they have since reluctantly been forced to sell.
Tam, Sir, your obedient servant, Eagtbourne, 7th April.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.