To the Eilitor of the Nonra-Cuixa Datu New:
Sux,—The question of the right of inland residence under Art. XII of the Treaty of Tientsin was thrashed out nian years ago, ago, indeed, that the reniembran the discussion appears to have perished.
e we should not now-a-days tind our younger missionaries again flogging the old dead horse. In the first place I must pay " passing tribute to the courage of Mr. Io. 8, Little, who gives us in your issue of the 17th instant a long argument upon the treaty, without having recourse to the authoritative English version, of which I Suppose he might have found " dozen cubies in every foreign hong in Kiukiang. The jon of the Chinese text of of A matter of very great tle is manifestly Where he puts in every port ap other places' he should have said port and in each place.' Thi vague expression, and a Chinese reading it might well be puzzled to eay what it means but assuredly he never would think that it meant both in the treaty ports and in all other places in the Empire.' Again every mercantile foreigner in China knows that, in spite of what Mr. Little says, the Chinese Governnient does contest the right of inland residence, that mapy hongs from time to time have attempted to establish godowns in the interior and have as regularly been compelled la them.
The true history of che insertion of the words other places' in Art, XIC is xe follows:—Before the year 1858 the Nnuking Teesty wae ins force, Followi possible rendering of the Chinese ver [G) of that treaty, the Eh se authorities some places claimed that foreigners had only the right to inhabit the ports ut the five cities then open, and not i the cities themselves, Lord Elyi visers informed him of this; and when the Treaty of Tientsin was made, the words in question were inserted in order to do away with avy such nonsensical distinction between the cities and their ports, The Tnngango ured does not doy mach credit. Lord Elgin's powers of composition; but. the meaning is undoubted. Not only did the British Government neither desire nor duim the right of inland residence; but when the question was firet mouted, few years after the 1g ut the trouty, though Lord Elgin himself was ded, the nen who had assisted him in framing it were able to explain the history ut the insertion of the phrase. But apart from direct testimony of that kind, is it nos plain that when Art, XU stipulates for the Fight to reside and lease land, ete,, in the open porta, Art. XII is not likely to give the same rights all over the country? Again, if we have permission to live every. where, what is the use of stipulating for the right to travel for pleasure or pur poses of trade, as is dene in another article Lord Elgin of course never dreavit of any one's imagining that we had a gerwral right of inland residence, and sv be was less careful than he might have been of the terms employed by him.
Tam, vto., 24th October.
To the Editor of the Noxru-Cuina Datty News, writer in your i 19th, while taking the opportunity to state xn ituxgiuary ignorance on my part, has ignored the fact that I dealt with' botly Li Hung-chang's Regulation and the British Minister's Circular in my first letter, Your correspondent definitely states that the British Minister's Circular supersede ed" the article to which I referred in the Trenty of 1808. " ty Me ut any a startling doctrine. A Minister may have right to interpret, but aurely by no humour or caprice can he supersede an international treaty. Che original trouty was entered into with Imperial consent on both sides, and unless " Minister was duly authorised by Imperial authorities could not enter upon a Treaty Revision, which the above practically amounts to, T have stated that a Minister would have the right to interpret the Treaty, but he could not be allowed to put an interpretation upon a Treaty which directly neyativéd or superseded it as in the present case, That ie nut interpretation. Tf one British Mivister has power to state that the article of the Treaty which distinctly gives a right to reside In the interior is not to be enforced, what is to hi Minister from ordering a on residence in any of the Ports? I think T showed clearly enough, except to auch as have made up their minds beyond the possibility of correction, that the same conditions attached to (1) Ports, (2) All-other places, and if one Minister is to allowed to say that the second part, viz., alb other places is to be stricken from the Trenty, what is to hinder the next one:
limiting porte to one or t cially favoured localities and diminishing the: present number of open ports'? The arguments in both cases, based on ther 'Treaty, would be exactly the same, but imagine the out ry' in the latter would
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.