Brox the Zola trial, as to which we do not wish to say more, the Maine disaster, of which we have later news by San Fran: cisco, and the concessions made by China to Sir Claude Macdonald, there is not much of general interest in the Intest papers received. The Foreign Office had communicated to the Press the following text of the arrangements in the interests of trade agreed to by the Chinese Government on the representations of H.M. Minister in Peking The internal waterways of China will be opened to British and other steamers in the course of June next, so that, wherever the use of native boats is now permitted by treaty, foreigners shall be equally allowed to employ; steamers or steam launches, whether owne by them or by Chinese.
In _viow of the great importance attached Yangtze region in Chinese possession, the by Great Britain to the retention of the Chinese Government have formally intimated to the British Government that there can be no question of territory in the valley or region of the Yangtze being mortgaged, leased, or ceded to any Power.
The post of Inspector-General of Maritime Customs shall in the future, as in the past, be held by-a British subject, so long as British trade with China at the ports continues to exceed that of any other Power, A port will be opened in Hunan within two years.
Commenting on this, the Times writes ina ledding article on the 21st of February
while, as Mr. Balfour stated, the loan The news we publish to-day shows that been abandoned, negotiations of a most portant character have been steadily proceeding and have now been brought to a satisfactory conclusion. The Chinese Government has given Sir Claude Macdonald an undertaking that Chins will not alienate to any other Power any. portion of the valley of the Yangtzekiang. She has agreed to open all inland waters to steamer navigation under regulations to be subsequently framed and which, it may be assumed, will be based on those already in force for the navigation of the Canton river and the lower reaches of the 3 and, though the central Govern-unable to secure at the present adegate protection for foreigners in a notoriously turbulent and fanatical province, the Tsungli Yamen has pledged itself to open a treaty port in Hunan within two years. It is hardly necessary to emphasise the importance of this agreement upon which our able Minister at. Peking and the Government at home deserve to be most heartily congratulated. The waterways of China, her rivers, and her lakes are her great highways and will remain so when the country is coveyed with complete network of railways. The basin of the Yangtze covers the whole of central China, from the flourishing port of Shanghai, the greatest emporium of foreign trade in the Far East, to the lofty mountain-ranges which border on our own Burmese possessions. Its mineral and agricultural resources are unrivalled, and the province of Szechuan, through which the upper waters of the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.