10th Dec Ir will amuse many and disgust some to hear that, according to our latest advices, Chungking is not yet opened. 'The Customs' staff, a considerable number of foreigners and Chinese, with all their private and official impediments, are still living in junks on the river in the greatest discomfort; the British Consul is more comfortable in the house in the city that has been occupied for some years by the wandering representatives of the Queen in the west of China, and is meanwhile negotiating for a site on which to build a consulate; and the merchants of the future are to live wherever they can, as it is not, at present at any rate, intended to ask for concession. Our Chungking correspondent in his letter of the Sth ultimo, explained that the Customs' staff could not have, as they had expected, the use of the yamen provided for the temporary residence of passing officials, because the Taotai was just going out of office. The Taotai, we now learn, an affable man and by no means unfriendly to foreigners, explained that he was expecting his successor in a few days, and the yamen in question must be reserved for him: he did, Lowever, it appears, provide some kind of shelter for Mr.
Hobson and his staff, but it was not such a residence as Mr. Hobson could use, even temporarily. Chungking is a long way from Peking, and it is very evident that the Szechuan officials, from the Viceroy down, are so proud of the victory they have gained over the British Minister, that they intend to continue to beas obstructive as possible. Not that we persuade ourselves for a moment that this delay, which ought to be exasperating, will ruffle Sir John Walsham in the least. He, we know, has convinced himself long since, that the more you abstain from pressing the Chinese, the more you will get out of them in the end; possibly he covertly shares Sir Thomas Wade's opinion, that it is actually a kindness to British merchants not to open for them a port, where a gunboat cannot be sent to protect them.
It is not certain, however, that the delay in declaring' the port open in some fashion is due this time to Chinese obstructiveness. We should, no doubt, be generally laughed at if we were to announce that Sir John Walsham had received the ratification from home, but had declined to forward it to the T'sungli Yamen because on previous inspection he found that Lord Salisbury hat forgotten to dot the fourth letter in his signature. It would be said that we were trying to put Sir John Walsham on a level with a late British Consul at Ichang, who is said to have postponed, to their great inconvenience, the marriage of a loving pair of missionaries, because at the last moment he discovered a misspelling in the notice of their marriage, which he had drawn up himself. It is gravely reported however in Peking that the ratification of the convention has not. been presented to the Chinese Foreign Office by the British Minister because of some such informality as we have mentioned, necessitating, in the Minister's opinion, reference to London. This is really an appropriate climax to the comedy of errors called "The Opening of Chungking," in the presentation of which Sir John Walsham has taken so prominent apart. Lord Salisbury has given away the right which the Chefoo convention gave British subjects, to run steamers on the Upper Yangtze, a right which was fully acknowledged early in the recent negotiations by the 'I'sungli Yameén; he has taken no compensation, for the opening of Chungking was by the convention to follow the successful navigation of the rapids; he was satisfied with the promise that the port should be opened; he sends up a consul, and Sir Robert Hart sends up a Commissioner of Customs and a large staff'; and the port is not opened, and nobody knows when it will be. When it is nominally, there will be, as far as we learn, no concession, and no settled anchorage for foreigners' vessels, a very important point and it would not be at all surprising to learn that the new Taotai had issued secret instructions thatit wight be found inconvenient for landlords to let houses to the merchants who are expected to come when this great mart is thrown open to trade. It is a very significant fact that the officials of the Chinese revenue should have to still live in comfortless and crowded Chinese junks. The success that has crowned the efforts of the Szechuan officials to crush steam traffic on the Upper Yangtze, is not likely to make them more ready to welcome the intrusive foreigner. They know that it takes nearly a mouth for assistance to reach the settlers in Chungking from the nearest port access sible to steamers, and they are conscious that the control of the capital over their great and rich province is very slight. he present condition of affairs at Chungking is anything but reassure ing; and the large and profitable trade that might be done there will have to be foregone, unless the foreign representatives at Peking assert themselves much more vigorously than the British Minister seems to have done so far.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.