tth Jan. Tuz November number of Blackwood j contains an article on "'I'be Riots in China"—the Yangtze riots, of course, and not these recent ones in Manchuria, The article is not signed, but it is written by some one who has kept himself well acquainted with the course of events in Chi of Tientsin to the missi Hill to Wusueh. His paper naturally divides itself into two parts, a historical survey of all that foreigners, and more
ad_to endure at the hands of the foreign missionaries, have Chinese, and his suggested remedy for these recurring; troubles No fault can be found with his history,—for such slips as " Burlinghame" for Burlingame are venial errors,—and it is only when he comes to speak of foreign intercourse with Hunan that he is at all astray. "No foreigner," he writes, "has ever been able to establish himself in the Eric and the chance travellers who ave skirted its northern portion going westward have found it necessary to conceal themselves as far as possible in the recesses of their: sedan chairs or boats or to hurry past the inhospitable frontier." Yet, as a matter of fact, the Roman Catholics have had, among other posts, a station in the uiorth-west of the province for some two centuries, which until: the recent riots was officered, as it were, by Spanish priests. If it be objected that these in early days: lay perdus, and since the Treaty have flitted about in Chinese dress,. still, we, may point to the most interesting " Six Weeks' Journey in Hunan" published in our columns last summer, to show that even Changsha, most unapproachable of Chinese cities, has been visited (though, it is true, not. en-more than once by a. foreigner. in foreign dress. The author of the "Journey," a colporteur and therefore more, if we may use the words in their. most inoffensive sense, of an aggressor and intruder than an ordinary traveller, indeed declares that, owing to repeated visits on the part of Protestant missionaries, many. of the towns of Hunan are uow accustomed. to and tolerant of the visits of foreigners. Still in view of the factitious, but not the less real, opposition of the Hunan provincial, as a body, to the entrance of Westerners, it may be allowed to the writer in Blackwood to represent Hunan now as Corea once was, and Tibet is, terra clause.
With regard to the causes of the riots we think that our. essayist lays a little too much stress on the Kolao Hui theory. No doubt' the active agents were chiefly disbanded braves, and disbanded braves, almost to a man, either belong or have belonged to some secret society; but the blame of the riots cannot be left to these mere instruments and tools. No doubt, too, as he again and again insists, theteficials—perhaps even the highest oficials in the Empire,—did not do their duty (to put his charges mildly); still it was not they who fired the train. "He says nothing of the rain of obscene and tying placards with which the presses of Changsha have flooded the Yangtse valley; the-only reference he makes to this incendiary literature is to the "Death-blow to Corrupt Doctrines," now superseded by the equally disgusting, pamphlet described by Dr. John, Death to the Devils' Doctrines!" There. can be no certain assurance that. the riots of last summer will not. be repeated in succeeding summers (summer is the usual time for Chinese riotings), until the authors of these pamphlets and placards are most signally punished, We are tar, however, from impugning the efficacy of our author's own remedy, which is, in a word, to throw Hunan open to trade. Indeed very great credit is due to him here for what, as far as we are aware, is an altogether novel proposal. When negotiating the Convention of Chefoo, Sir: Wade proposed (as he explains in the China Blue Book No. 3 of 1882) the opening of Yochou in addition to Ichang, Wenchow, Wuhu, and Pakhoi. "Tt is a centre of much importance" he wrote, "and was not till the last. moment that; I surrendered it." Now although Sir 'T, Wade states that Yochou."'is not, properly speaking, on the Great River," to all intents and purposes it is. But the writer in Blackwood boldly abandons the, Great River, and suggests the opening of a tow in the very. interior of the. province. His selection is most
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.