CONVENTION, 23rd Sept. TweRE is good reason to believe that Mr. Brenan's protest against the ratification of the new Telegraph Convention has not been inoperative with H.E. Li Hung-chang, and the matter has been represented also at the Tsungli Yamen by the Doyen of the diplomatic body, Mr. von Brandt, and by Sir John Walsham and Colonel Denby, the British and U.S. Ministers. We are glad to hear, too, that the Committee of the Chamber of Commerce, who were inclined to think that they had done enough in the past in the matter, are waking up again and proposing to move the Chambers at home and the /China Association to strengthen the hands of the Foreign Office, before whom the matter has been recently, as we know, fully and clearly laid. In times of depression like this the commercial public here is' too prone to be apathetic, and disinclined to take trouble; but this question is not merely of the tariff for telegrams this yeat or next year, it is a question of ten years, and it is a lasting benefit that will be secured if the ratification of the Convention can be prevented now, as it can be if all interested work energetically against it.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.