9th July. Mr. Byron Brenay's peripatetic enquiry into the State of ''rade at the Treaty Ports of China, has resulted in the issue of a Report, dated Chefoo, the 15th of October, to the Foreign Office, which has just been published in a pamphlet of 70 pages with a sketch map of China, at the moderate price of fivepence, Mr. Brenan provides his pamphlet with an analytical table of contents, dividing his Report into five sections; (1) The Present Position; (2) Inland Transit Trade; (3) The Suzgestions and Complaints of Merchants; (4) Consequences of the War with Japan; (5) What may be done to Promote 'I'rade. We cannot spare the room to reprint Mr, Brenan's Report in full, and those who are specially interested in the matter will no doubt procure a copy of the pamphlet for themselves, but we propose to try and give a summary of it without omitting any important point. One way to do this, and not so inadequate a way as might at first be thought, would be to reprint Mr. Brenan's table of contents, which gives a capital summary of the Report.
Mr. Brenan begins by saying that he did not find British merchants making nearly as many complaints: as he expected; and this he attributes to the fact that as they cannot do nearly as much as they. would do to extend trade, they are restricted to operations that do not leave roam for the appearance of any question that has not already been fully debated and finally settled. The Chinaman is gradually elbowing the foreigner out. Thirty years ago the late Lord Hammond justified the neglect of China by the Foreign Office by the statement that half a century would see the British merchant excluded from China_as he has been from the Levant, and Mr. Brenan seems to think- that. this prediction is being verified. But he does not consider this to be necessarily an unsatisfactory resuit of our wars and diplomacy; so long as the trade exists and continues to be developed, we must rest content to let the business pass into the hands of those who can do it the most successfully. Meanwhile, the British merchant acts asia protector of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.