Taw position of the British in India in the present day has been not inaptly compared to that of the Romans during their occupation of Britain: the tenure being a purely military one and lacking mem! the main condition of permanent pos session, viz, a fusion of the invaders with the original inhabitants of the country. A thousand years after the last legionary was withdrawn, little remained to bring home to the people of Britain the fact that during four centuries they had been sneerparesed with the Roman Empire. The learned knew the fact and a few traces of the occupation remained to attest it in ruined walls of the entrenched camps, which formed the chief Roman cities, and in fragments of the mighty roads which once traversed the Province from end to end. And here were races of the same type and colour, if not of the same blood and, if, as is apparent, the spoken language was never adopted by the conquered, the only written language in use was that of the conquerors, Yet a few centuries had sufficed totally to obliterate the imported higher civilisation and it was reserved for modern times to di cover in the unearthed remains of substantial dwellings and buried roadways how solidly the Romans esteemed themselves established in the land. And, as revolutions and calamities at the heart withdrew the protecting legions from the extremities to Rome, so is it easily conceivable that an era of convulsions, which, in the decay of another ancient faith and in the removal of the old Iandmarks of society, some prophets believe to be impending in Europe, would compel the withdrawal of the foreign garrisons from India and the East, and had so bring about a return of the chaos in the midst of which they were originally imposed.
Pes sie in India and in tropical superficial as is the hold of European
Asia generally, still more feeble is the impression we have succeeded in making by our settlements in China. In their hearts this ancient and persistent people regard us steadily as so many temporary intruders, whom the jess of the Manchu dynast; has allowed to gain a short foothold, but whose term is nothing in the long duration of the Empire, Many families who, compelled or tempted by abnormal values, have alienated their patrimony to the stranger, still retain the earliest ancient title-deeds in their ancestral halls, calmly waiting to resume their land as soon as the fleeting "Western" shall have passed on again. Slowly but surely, the Chinese believe, is the country, being rendered proof against outside violence by patient re-armament and, by the force of things, independent of outside: interference in its~ commerce with inborn trading instincts and a spirit of thrift, in which they closely resemble the Hebrew race, they are fast acquiring the broader commercial virtues to which we owe our sent supremacy, and the old idea that the-Chinese are incapacitated by their character from the successful management of large commercial undertake on the modern scale is being rapidly dissipated. Old residents in Chiva rethe time when it was an axiom that the Chinese were too conservative and too ignorant to initiate anything of the kind unless under foreign pressure, and that their vast natural resources could only be developed under western leadership. This leadership, undoubtedly necessary at first, already shews signs of being no longer indispensable, and no cone can feel but that before the first century of our settlement in Shanghai
out of leading strings. Then, even has expired, the Chinese will be entirely should no change for the worse occur in the West in the interval, the presence of the Western in an uncongenial climate and in a land which he can never hope to make his home and the home of his posterity, will be no longer called for; nor, handicapped as we are by our more expensive manner of living acquit that knowledge of the language and the practical impossibility of
and habits of the people, without which we must inevitably" succumb in the struggle for supremacy—is it in the nature of things that our hold on the country should continue anent? The coasting trade, the customs service and the industrial enterprises which, at the present time, afford the most steadily lucrative employment for the greater number of Westerns now earning a livelihood in China, are all regarded with envious eyes both by the officials and by the more enlightened portion of the population,—precisely that portion which has the advantage of intercourse with the foreigner; and it does not need the prospective denunciation by the Marquis Tseng of the treaties to which we owe our existence in the country, to threaten the position attained by us after the prolonged and arduous efforts of war and diplomacy which the history of our progress to date so painfully illustrates, It is an open secret that the leading statesmen in China are steadily preparing the way to dispense with the ay ly. sive though really cheap foreign aid in more than one of these services and, although fresh calls
yet, on the whole, a reduction rather in other quarters may temporarily arise, than an increase in our influence in the country, seems impending.
Whether we are right or wrong in these somewhat pessimist views of the future, no one will deny that it is our duty, both in our own immediate interests and in those of our posterity, to leave no stone unturned to strengthen our position and fully to avail ourselves of such advant as we do possess. If we look around us for weapons with which to combat the dangers with which our position is menaced, we shall find no lack of means for a successful-defence. In the foothold we have ready gained and inthe vantage ground given us by treaty, a guarantee of permanency in our relations with China exists, if we only. know. how to make a wise use of our advantages and to adapt ourselves to the steadily changing conditions of the struggle. In the free port of Hongkong, we possess a firm foothold for unrestricted industrial enterprise, apart from its importance as a depot; but here in Shanghai, though as a treaty port we have a right to settle. and trade in it, our tenure, and especially our escape from native official interference in all points where the treaties speak vaguely, is precarious in the extreme. The revised land regulations give our little municipality precisely that defined status which, if a struggle should occur and it comes to a pinch, we shall find sadly lacking. Shanghai, the Woosung bar and the growth of the Yangtse delta notwithstanding, seems indubitably destined to be the future New York of China. But if we are determined not to be worsted and are to continue to play the part we have hitherto done in the progress of the port, we must be up and doing. There are signs in the times that the days of further concessions have gone by and that the utmost we can hope for will be to hold on to what we have of. If we are really unanimous in sire to see these regulations passed, we cannot fail to get the unanimous support of our respective home governments and so compel them to instruct their diplomatic representatives in Peking' to see that they are How expression can most effectively be given to such unanimity, we have not. space to discuss to-day, but meanwhile we may rest assured that if we let things slide, or leave them to the initiative of our diplomatic representatives, which is munch the same thing, not only do we risk the existence of the model settlement which we owe to our predecessors, but if we fail to emulate their energy and persistence, no four centuries will be needed for all trace of our passage to be obliterated. 4
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.