By Dr. Arthur Smith, It is practically impossible for foreigners in China at the present day to understand fully the impoctance of the question with what ceremonies the Emperor of China should receive the Ministers of Foreign Powers. To-day no ruler of any country of importance is more accessible than the '"pre-i sident'' of the hundreds of millions of China. But a century ago the, case was immensely different.
The Emperor was "The Son of. Heaven" too sacred a being for the eyes of his subjects to behold. Whenever he stirred abroad the! streets of the capital were cleared, all shops were closed. At the june-} tion of the principal streets which he was to traverse the openings' into other principal streets were closed by huge bedquilts hung acroes them or by reed mats, to prevent His Imperial Majesty from seeing anything unlucky. From the time of the very first foreign envoys there had been an irrepressible con. flict. between the Chinese Book Rites and Western pretensions to equality. Lord Macartney in 1793 would not perform) the ceremony of the kotow unless a mandarin of equal rank would do the same to al picture of King George III; yati he was allowed to go to Jehol and was favourably received by the Emperor in a tent (though not suffered to discuss the subject of trade, for which he had come bringing highly, expensive presents).
Lord Amherst reached Peking in' August 1816, but because he declined the indignity of being hustled into the presence of Emperor in his travelling clothes, and because he refused to perform the kotow, he; was summarily dismissed at once. The treaties of 1860 unfortunately) ignored! the question, the Ministers' of that day being unwisely persuade' ed to hold in abeyance the right of audience during the minority of the youthful T'ung Chih. When he was 16 and a half years old (17 by Chinese reckoning) he was married with great ceremony and not long afterward he was proclaimed as of age. The envoys of the western Powers again made application for permission to present their credentials.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.