22nd Sept. Frox what we know of the action taken by the Foreign Ministers, under the capable leadership of Colonel Denby, the Dean, in the two questions now pending with the Tsungli Yamen, we have every reason to be satisfied; and foreigners in Shanghai are not too easily satisfied with the action of the Ministers. It is now about a month since Colonel Denby informed the Municipal Council as to the steps that had been taken by the Diplomatic Body in the matter of the Sungpu massacre; and we understand that another and much stronger despatch has since been sent to the I'sungli Yamen, in which the conduct of the Viceroy Chang Chih-tung is specially animadverted on, and the Ministers do not hesitate to express their fear, founded on the reports that reach them from the Consuls at the Yangtze ports, that the position of foreigners in the interior is not so secure as it ought to be, and that the officials are not honestly and heartily obeying the instructions contained in the Imperial Edict of the 13th of June, 1891. These despatches have, of course, been communicated to the Viceroy, and what we have heard from time to time during the last month from Hankow indicates that they have made some impression. That. so self-opinionated a man as Chang Chih-tang will at once change his views as to the proper treatment of foreigners—views which he is said to have recently embodied in a secret memorial to the 'I'hrone— we are not sanguine enough to expect; but highly as he is regarded as the most finished scholar among the great officials of the Empire, his position, as the recent enquiry into his general conduct shows, is not unassailable; and we should fairly hope that if the Foreign Ministers are firm, as they may be trusted to be, he will have to give way. We do not gather that he has given way yet, or made his subordinates throughout the two provinces over which he rules understand clearly that foreigners are to be properly treated for we know that those best qualified to judge are convinced that "the battleship of the Yangtze," the Jk, did not arrive at Ichang a day too soon. There ought really to be even now more British men-of-war on the Yangtze; but Admiral Fremantle is hampered by having to assist in policing Bering Sea, and having still to keep a force at hand in case of the recrudescence of trouble in Siam, where, unfortunately, the French ships that should assist in protecting foreigners on the Yangtze are also detained. As long as our Ministers, however, confine themselves as they are now doing to demanding the proper respect for rights secured by "reaty and by Imperial Edict, they are on perfectly safe ground, and they must succeed in beating down the procrastinating defences, which are the traditional resource of Chinese diplomacy.
As regards the second question, the prohibition of the importation of machinery into Shanghai, the position of the foreign Ministers is quite unassailable. On Page 21 of the second issue (1st June, 1887) of the General Tariff for the Trade of China, under the cognizance of the Foreign Customs Inspectorate, issued by the Statistical Department of the Inspectorate-General, it is stated that the import duty on machinery is 5 per cent. ad valorem, and there is no hint of any kind that it is in the power of the native or foreign Customs authorities to put any prohibition on the importation of machinery of any kind. There is a note under the heading " Machinery," but it only mentions that machinery for government use is included under the heading, and explains how the value on which duty is to be paid is to be arrived The fact is that the Viceroy Li Hung-chang and his friends have got it into their heads that there is much money to be made out of cotton manufactnring, and they want to keep it in their own hands. They want, in fact, for themselves the monopoly of cotton manufacturing, and this they propose to secure by prohibiting the importation of machinery by any one outside their "ting." We may brash away, as Colonel Denby has done, all the pretexts about manufacturing not being allowed in so many words by the'Treaties, andabout the desire of the authorities to prevent the bread being taken out of the mouths of the poor people, whose manual industries would be ruined by the establishment of mills, It could be easily proved to them, if they really were so solicitous about the poor, that the erection of mills at Shanghai and Ningpo would give new employment to hundreds and thon-sands of men and women, who are now barely living. But this is not what they care about. Their sole idea is to get the monopoly of cotton manufacturing, heedless of the fact that there are special' articles in the Treaties against monopolies. It is obvious that if the Diplomatic Body is firm in this case too, the prohibition cannot be maintained, and when once it is removed, a vista of greatness is opened to Shanghai whose extent it is difficult to exaggerate.
The thought of the future of Shanghai brings up the third question, the Woosung Bar. The Chamber of Commerce has completed the necessary guarantee for its share of the expense of a report from Sir Charles Hartley. What are the Chinese doing now? As far as we know they have taken no farther step, and nothing is being done. This neglect is little short of scandalous, and we trust that the Chamber of Commerce are not losing the opportunity to impress on Colonel Denby the grave importance of this question also, that he may bring it once again before the Diplomatic Body, if, possibly, the latest developments have not hitherto been brought to their notice.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.