Our latest information regarding the of the "Ichang Convention" shews no change in the position of affairs since we last published some notes on the subject. It appears that the six deputies of high estate, sent there last year by the Scechuan and Hupeh Viceroy, continue their pretence of negotiating with the new Consul, Mr. E. H. Fraser, much as they did with Mr. Gregory, the retiring Consul. For their idea of totally separating the steamer from the junk trafic by allotting separate days to each, based, as they alleged, upon positive' instructions from the Szechuan Viceroy, they have as yet no practical substitute. When they asiced how they expected a steamer to get up to Chinkiang in two days, the period the proposed to allot to the steamer in eric month, they calmly said " Your foreign devices are go clever" (miao fal). Seeing that the deputies have no authority to conclude anything but must report the result of each interview to the Viceroy, while the Consul on his part can accept nothing without Sir John Walsham's ratification and that it is a long cry from Ichang to Cheng-tu and Peking, if the present *Ichang Convention" ever Jeads to any result, we shall be no little astonished. A more perfect device for procrastination has hardly ever been seen even in China, and how the British Minister can be a party to it and the Home Government submit to such trifling inconceivable is through no fault of theirs that the popu-Jntion along the banks and in Chungking are so hostile that they must be pacific before a steamer can go amongst them; it is not their fault that navigation rules are now necessary. The Chinese have had ten or eleven yeara since the Chefoo Convention was signed to make these rules and pacify people and the ferocious monkeys along the banks; if they have not done so, and if in consequence British subjects have suffered heavy losses by the detention of a valuable steamer month after month, it is only right the Chinese should pay for it. We trust the company will make a formal claim for full compensation through the Foreign Office, at home, and will succeed in obtaining Lord Salisbury's peremptory instructions to the Minister at Peking to press it energetically on the Chinese Government.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.