Consulate-General the following courteous communication "Sir, "T am instructed by H.M. Acting Consul-General to inform you that he has' received a telegram irom Peking to the effect that th Teungli Yamea has announced its intention of opening Woosung as a Treaty Port and of establishing a Customs station there."
There have no doubt been several considerations that have induced the Tsungli Yamen to take this step. BLE. Sheng, Director-General of Rvilways, has no doubt urged it, as he has a large extent of property at Woosung which, with his projected wharves and railway, will be greatly benefited by. the creation there of a treaty port. The Psungli Yamen, again, has been shown that to make a place into a treaty port is a good way to prevent its being grabbed" by some enterprising foreign Power, and this is no doubt why Funing is to be opened. Again, the Yamen may have concluded that to open Woosung as a treaty port is a good way to answer the constant demands that China should remove the Woosung Bar. The coasting steamers, they may urge now, do not find the bar any obstacle to their reaching Shanghai, and for the ocean steamers that draw too much water to be sure of getting safely to Shanghai, there is now Wovsung with a convenient railway to the mother port; We may note, meanwhile, that there has been a Customs station at Woosung for the last quarter of a century, at least.
It is to be hoped that the first thing done when the port is opened will be the dismantling of the Woosung Forts, In fact, the site now covered by the forts would be the ideal site for the future British Concession. Forts like those at Woosung in the hands of a Power too weak to use them properly or protect them are like a loaded pistol the hands of a child, a danger to itself and to every one else. If war breaks out between Spain and the United States, though we still hope that Spain will listen to reason and make the concessions asked for by the United States, China will have to undertake the duties of a neutral Power, of which she has little knowledge, and no force to back up what knowledge she has. She would be in a much safer position under these circumstances without the forts at Woosung than with them. They are a temptation to covetous eyes which it would be better for all interested to remove.
The opening of Woosung as a treaty Port is not likely for some time to have much effect on Shanghai as a commercial centre. To the owners of the ocean steamers which, like the Zmpresses, never come up to Shanghai, it will be a convenience to be able to. enter and clear their steamers and do their Customs work on the spot, stead of at a distance of fourteen miles.
Woosung has hitherto been regarded as a part of Shanghai, as we saw in the case recently decided at the U.S. Consulate-General; it will now probably he necessary for shippers of cargo at home to have it distinctly understood whether their cargo is to be delivered at Shanghai or Woosung. hat Woosung will supersede Shanghai as the great port of the Yangtze Valley we do not imagine. Vested interests here are too large, and Woosung is by no means a good harbour. By the time that Woosung threatens the commercial. proeperity of Shanghai, the two towns will probably be joined by continuous streets of houses. 'I'here are, we understand, plenty of double polts, like Shanghai and Woosung, in Australia and New Zealand, and no practical difficulty results. Much, of course, will depend on the way in which the regulations for the use of the two ports are framed and. carried out; and Sic Robert Hart may confidently be trusted not to make them onerous and unworkable; though in this case they will require to be framed with a little more common-sense and simplicity than the Parcel Post regulations lately issued at Peking.
In one way Shanghai may be a great gainer by the opening of Woosung as a treaty port, he thermometer in the summer is many degrees lower there than it is at Shanghai; and a comfortable hotel at the angle opposite the Red Buoy, where the Whangpu joins the Yangtze, will be a refuge in July and August that will be of inestimable value to sweltering humanity here. We only trust that the opening of Woosung will not be used as an argument against the extension of the Settlement at Shanghai, Beviews,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.