11th March.
Ma. Hvanes' notification on Tuesday morning as to the opening of Chungking gave us the full text of the Additional Article of the Chefoo Agreement; and we desire to record an emphatic protest against the preamble to the Article. It runs "'he Governments of Great Britain and China being desirous of settling in an amicable spirit the divergence of opinion which has arisen with respect to the First Clause of the Third Section of the Agreement concluded at Chefoo in 1876 which stipulates that the British Government will be free to send Officers to reside at Chungking to watch the conditions of British trade in Szechuan, that British merchants will not bellowed to reside at Chungking or to open establishments or warehouses there, so long as no steamers have access to the port, and that when steamers have succeeded in ascending the River so far, further arrangements can be taken into consideration' have agreed upon the following Additional Article How Sir John Walsham can have put his name to this preamble we fail to understand. It is here stated that there was "a divergence of opinion" with respect to the clause as to the opening of Chungking. Sir Thomas Wade's clause was, we admit, as ambignous as it could be, and it is understood that it was purposely made ambiguous. But we have not hitherto understood that there was any diver-nce of opinion as to its meaning. Nhe T'sungli Yamen, the British representatives at Peking Mr. O'Conor and Sir John Walsham, and the British Foreign Office, were all agreed that the clause gave British subjects the right to despatch steamers to Chungking, as soon as they were willing to risk the attempt. "The Tsungli Yamen distinctly conceded the principle. When Mr. Archibald Little first asked the question when ther he would be allowed to take a steamer to Chungking, he was told by Mr. O'Conor, who was then British Charge affaires and who took a strong interest in the enterprise, "With peuple like the Chinese it is no use asking an abstract question; build your steamer and then come and ask, and it will be all right." Mr. Little got up his company and built his steamer, and he came to Sir. John Walshata, who had by that time taken charge: of British interests at Peking, Sir Johm told Mr: Little that the Yamen allowed thatthe treaty guve him the t right to go to Chungking, but there were a few details that must be settled before the omit would be issued. When Mr. Little left Peking, he was told by Sir John Walsham that the permit would probably reach Ichang before him. Sceptical people told Mr. Little that he should have sat on the steps of the Legation until he got. his permit, and refused to come away without it; but unfortunately he was satisfied with Sir John's assurance that there was no divergence between the Legation and the Yamen as to the principle of the question, and the delay was only due to the necessity of arranging a few petty details. How Mr. Little was disappointed when he got back to Ichang how deputies were sent to Ichang to arrange the details, with private orders to come to no agreement, and how the question was kept open month after month, almost year after year, until the shareholders in the Kuling were worn out and accepted the offer of the Chinese to buy them out, is ancient history. The obstacle to the granting of a permit was the obstinacy of the Viceroy of Szechuan; and the euphemistic expression "divergence of opinion" is used to cover the weakness of the Peking government which could not control its own Viceroy, and the weakness of Sir John Walsham and the Foreign Office in consenting to an ignominious surrender of a treaty right, acknowledged to be such by the Tsungli Yamen. Foreigners in Chiva have written and said hard things about Sir John Walsham; but we are confident that no one ever expected that he would try to cover up his concession to the obstructiveness of a provincial official with a smooth sentence about a " divergence of opinion." It is possible that we entirely misunderstand this preamble, and we hope we do; for it seems to us as it stands entirely unworthy of a British Minister. after a fashion, vad the Customs, Meanwhile C1 king is opened,
we understand, are anxious, naturally enough, that merchants should go there and open up the trade, and' there is undoubtedly a good trade to be done there. But merchants can only go there in Chinese vessels or vessels of Chinese type, which means actually that Chungking is as far from Shanghai as London or New York. We do notice in Sec. V of the Additional Article that British steamers are to have access to the port "when once Chinese steamers carrying cargo run to Chungking." his is better than the pro previously announced that the Chinese steamers were to go to Chungking and back with cargo before British steamers could follow them. We hope there will be no divergence of opinion" about this by-and-by.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.