28th July.
IN the letter from Changsha, Hunan, which we published yesterday morning, our correspondent, writing on the 15th of June, says: "The long-pending case between H. Ben-hertz and Ca, and the Chinese officials is es yet unsettled. Rumour has it, however, that a settlement may soon be looked for. The case is one of interest to both Chinese and foreign residents of Changsha, aad vitally 80 to the foreign merchants and those who intend to establish business of any kind in this city." It will surprise those who believe in the energy of the British authorities, and their anxiety to foster British trade in China, to learn that now, six weeks after the above paragraph was written, the settlement of this case seems farther off than ever, and it even appears that the Chinese authorities will be allowed to consummate their design to starve Mr. Bennertz into silence, although there is a British Copsul in Changsha, provided by the Chinese Government, according to our correspondent, with an exceedingly comfortable residence with a large garden inside the city.
We have already drawn attention to the oppression to which Mr. Ben-hertz has been subjected by the Chinese authorities at Changsha, -linsisting on his own behalf, and on: beha'f of British trade generally, on his undoubted treaty right to open a place of business in the city of Changsha, which is a treaty port, and where there is, at present, no foreign Settlement, the site proposed being under water at high water. The thoroughly Chinese methods which the authorities at Changsha have employed to discourage Mr. Bennertz may be usefully recapitulated. It should bs remarked that the opposition to him is entirely official; he has the full sympathy of the Chinese mercantile classes in Changsha. The officials began a yearsago by serving notices on hin and closing his hong in the city. Then they ordered him to remove his signboards which bore the usual notice, "English Foreign Pong." Then as many as eight separate proclamations against him were posted up in the city, ordering the merchants not to trade with him. Then his goods were stopped from entering the city gates, after they had been duly passed by the foreign Customs, unless he paid likin on them. Then 'a lawyer named Ah-lo was employed to give him notice to vacate his premises, of which he had paid the rent in advance, and he was warned that if he did not vacate, the officials would probably b> unable to stem the tide of popular wrath. Ihere was, of course, no popular feeling against Mr. Bennertz of any kind, and when the fateful day came, the officials had not the pluck to organise the intended riot, but what they did was to send for the coolie head-men and make them sign a document at the magistrate's yamen, that no coolie should carry any cargo belonging to Messrs. Bennertz & Ca., under threat lof severe punishment, On one occasion the British Consul provided Mr. Bennertz with a document stating that he was fully authorised to take his cargo into Changsha without paying any: likin; and the likin authorities disavowed' any knowledge of the British Consul, and threw the document, with the British Consul's' signature on it down in the road and trampled on it. What is most extraordinary and almost incredible is that these things are done im an open port, where are a British Consul, and a British Com sioner of Customs who is supposed to advise the Chinese authorities on matters in which foreigners are con-now for a whole year, because he,{eerned, and which is accessible to with the support of the British|the British river gunboats which are Consul-Geperal at Hankow and the|fondly supposed by the House of British Consul at Changsha, has been Commons to be patrolling the Yangtze for the purpos> of protecting British subjee's and British trade, Our readers may perhaps wonder that more has not bseu said in our columns about the treatment to which Mr. Bennertz, and the firms here whom he represents, have been subjected. His whole case, however, was' in the hands of the British Consul-General at Hankow, Mr. Everard Fraser, and of the British Minister, Sir Ernest Satow, in whom the fullest confidence has always been placed, and it was felt that to ventilate the case too much in the public Press might embarrass their negotiations with the Waiwupu. It had been admitted throughout by them that the action of the Chinese authorities at Changsha was entirely illegal and that Mr, Bennertz had a good claim to compensation, although the sum ultimately given him might be less than that to which he thought himself entitled. But to fight the Chinese authorities for a year, prow hibited from doing any business, unable to sell or buy cargo or carr out any of the contracts made witl Chinese merchants, with expenses going on all the time, is ruinous to an individu+! who had no large sum of cipitat to begin with, He has been sustained through all this trying time by the assurance that the British Minist r would see him righted and would enfo: ce his claim, but on Wednesday evening lust the following despairing telegram, in code, translated, dated Changsha, 26th July, was received here from him:—"All hope is abandoned. I am ruined. British authorities do not guarantee, and say that the Chinese refuse a settlement."
We must wait some days to get the fall explanation of this message, and meanwhile we do not suppose that the British Consul at Changsha will allow Mr. Bennertz and his wife to actually starve, pitiable as their condition must be. We have sug-before that British maerchants here who wish to see their goods introduced to the markets of unau should help Mr. Bennertz who, while fighting his own battle, has also been fighting the battle of British trade generally, and for whom we should have appealed for assistance earlier, but that we believed that his case was safe in the hands of Mr. Fraser and Sir Ernest Satow and we wait eagerly to hear why they are now pre to acquiesce in China's refusal to settle justly with Mr. Bennertz, who apy to have been ruined, as British mer-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.