7th July. We had intended to draw attention to the last and most remarkable suggestion in the recent letter of the Chinkiang Chatber of Commerce to Mr. Brenan, "that titular consuls should be permitted when possible to remain in their posts undisturbed, as thus they can acquire a practical and intimate knowledge of local trade and the advancement of British interests be promoted and we are reminded of our omission by the appearance of a short article in the Daily Press, in which the editor deprecates the suggestion. He thinks it better for a Consul to make in time the round of the ports and get a comprehensive idea of the whole trade. "The more experience a Consul has the better able will be to serve the interests of the port at which he happens to be stationed, and experience is to be gained by moving from one port to another." The Daily Press treats this grave subject much too flippantly; to talk of a Consul "happening " to be stationed at a port is to insinuate that his assignment is as casual as the appointment of Customs officials is supposed to be; and we are authoritatively informed that the chances and changes of their official life are entirely dependent ea the accidental dislocation of the pegs in a board in Sir Robert Hart, Bart.'s, ball at Peking, The assignment of Consuls to their duties must be a matter of very serious consideration to the British Minister at Peking. here are three classes of Consulates, desirable, undesirable, and impossible; and the question is farther complicated by the fact that one man's meat is another man's poison; and that a port which is desirable to a Consul with a small wife and a large family may be impossible to a Consul with no encumbrances and private means. One Consul is an ardent sinologue, and he wants a port where there are no British residents to bother him and he can give all his time to his new dictionary, and when that is finished, to confuting the criticisms which it immediately evokes from all the other sinologues who always intended to publish much better dictionaries. Another is fond of society, sings a good song, has an eye for a pavy, and likes a port where there are race meetings twice a year and occasional gymkhanas. He is generally a good type of Consul, has plenty of energy, and knows how to get what he wants from Chinese officials, with whom he converses affably in a patois of his own, so unintelligible to them that they grant his demands to save themselves the trouble of understanding them. Another type has been. called to the Bar, having got in cheap because the examiners were impressed by his having sacrificed his hard-earned leave for the purpose. He wants a port where there are no lawyers within 500 miles, and he can compose the legal difficulties of his nationals without any fear of his sciolism being detected. Consulates and Consuls being thus divided into desirable, undesirable, and impossible, and these classes being farther subdivided into absolutely and relatively, it is easy to see what a terrible task the British Minister has to so distribute his men as to satisfy (a) the Foreign Office, (b) the British communities, and (c) the service itself. He is not the autocrat that the Inspector-Geveral of Customs is, The latter can send a very senior Commissioner to an impossible port, and the victim dares not even to murmur; but custom demands that senior Consuls shall only be sent to desirable ports. ''hen as to the experience which the Daily Press thinks the Consuls get by being moved about. This experience is rather apt to be of the durability of furniture when exposed to the vicissitudes of transport on the China coast and on Chinese rivers, an experience too often dearly bought.
There being then very bad as well as very good Consulates, it is obviously impossible that the desire of the Chinkiang Chamber of Commerces for the immobility of Consuls should be carried out. Desirable Consuls would be driven mad—there used to bea theory that all Consuls in small ports were mad—by being kept permanently in impossible ports; and impossible Consuls, if they are to remain in the service at all, must be subjected sometimes to the humanising influence of a desirable port. A Consul left too long in a port becomes moss-grown. He makes friends with the Commissioner of Customs, and any despotic tendencies the latter may possess have unchecked sway, or he quarrels with the Commissioner, and the social life of the port is split into two inharmonious factions. Or the Consul gets into a misunderstanding with one of his nationals, and as he has little real business to do, he nurses what was a bagatelle to begin with into a big grievance, until unanimity dies out of the community, and the division is proof even against the conciliatory influence of Christmas. It seems to us quite a mistake to think that the advancement of British interests is promoted by keeping a Consul a long time in one port. His views get narrowed, the Chinese get to know the length of his foot, the moss of old custom grows over him. It sinew brooms that sweep clean; the energies of a man left long in the same office are gradually paralysed; his pigeon-holes are filled, and the spider weaves its net in security across their mouths. It is a good rule that both Consuls and Commissioners should be changed from time to time. A rolling stone may gather no moss, but moss is not a concomitant of progress. In these days of acute competition when, according to the Times, merchants require Consular aid to achieve success in the international struggle, a Consul moss-grown from long residence in the same port would be an intolerable anomaly,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.