*

gratified by a perusal of the Report of the House of Commons' Committee on the China Trade (Sess. 1846), and of the annual returns relating to Trade. We will balance the trade with China carried on by us from July, 1837, to July, 1838 (the fairest year which can be taken between the settlement of the trade in 1834 and the hostilities which terminated in the war of 1840), with that carried on in 1846, one of the most successful commercial years since the treaty of 1842. Now in the first of these years we find that the value of the imports into China was 24,785,462 Spanish dollars, or 5,163,6377. 18s. 4d.,—that of the export trade with us, 22,014,700 dollars, or 4,586,3951. 16s 8d. These sums, however, include the estimated value of the opium trade in that year, viz. 2,823,7521., and the value of the returns for the drug, -items which the consular accounts under the present system take no notice of, except so far as a return in the regular course of trade may be made for the imported poison. The consular returns for 1846 show the value of the trade in that year with Great Britain and her possessions to have been, at Canton:

* The foreign trade of China with England is very much larger than that conducted by the Americans, and the commerce between China and other European countries (except Russia) is quite insignificant. As to the trade with Russia, the smuggling on the frontier is so extensive that the custom-house returns cannot be depended upon at all as an accurate measure. Certainly the trade in Russian woollens is very important, and is one in which we are not able to compete under the present system successfully. We quote from Sir John Davis the following statement of the Russian overland commerce-In 1830, the whole importation of woollens at that place (Kiachta) amounted to 154,552 yards; in 1839, to 1,297,230; and in 1840 it rose to 1,328,912. These were two years of a more or 'less suspended trade with England; but the quantity is still very 'large. Tea, the principal export, has increased in a similar manner. In 1830, there were brought 43,070 boxes each of 100 lbs., besides 71,940 pieces of brick tea; in 1839, boxes 47,950, and 60,430 'pieces. On this commodity the greatest profits are realised; and one account states that what was bought at Kiachta in 1839 for " 7,000,000 dollars realised 18,000,000 at the fair of Nischegorod. All the nomadic tribes of Western Asia use the brick tea in pro'fusion, and it often passes as a circulating medium. Hence the large gain of the Russians, who may be said to possess the monopoly; and at the same time the readiness with which they incur a loss on their imports to pay for this article.. The declared

amount (declared in Russia) of imports to Northern Asia in 1840 was 3,615,130. in Russian dollars; and of exports, 6,892,9521. About eleven-twelfths of this are absorbed, either directly or indi'rectly, in the Chinese trade.' (Vol. ii. pp. 96, 97.).

whilst the trade at the other ports is quite insignificant, except at Amoy, where the imports amounted to 106,000l., though the exports seem to have amounted to 8,6007. only. In these accounts the preponderance of exports over imports at Canton and Shanghae is attributable to some of the returns for opium being made in the way of legitimate commerce; whereas at Amoy these returns are always made in specie, and are dealt with by the opium clippers themselves, and so do not pass through the custom house or consular offices. After 1846 the state of trade was very unsatisfactory for some time, the Manchester shippers had overstocked the Chinese markets, and the English tea and silk markets were equally glutted. The tea glut was a year in advance of the silk plethora, apparently, and the state of trade in these staple articles appears only lately to have become at all settled. In 1848 the raw silk imported amounted to 2,200,182 lbs., which in 1849 fell off to 1,845,525 lbs.; whilst the supplies of tea which in 1848 had fallen to 47,774,755 lbs., in 1849 rose to 53,459,469 lbs.,somewhat larger than the largest previous importations in any one year. Perhaps the following table of the declared values of the exports of British produce to China in every year from the opening of the trade in 1834 to 1849, will give a useful idea of the course of that commerce in that period.

Before leaving these figures we must remark upon one feature of the commerce which we have carried on in China since 1844, and that is the change which has taken place in the relative positions of Canton and Shanghae, -a change which we cannot but think gratifying, so far as it goes, and which the following statistics will illustrate:

Now, comparing the trade with China of the year 1838 and that of the years since the peace, when we remember what had taken place in the interim of these two periods, that the Chinese had been completely within our power, that we had made with them a treaty which we considered, not indeed to secure to us perfect freedom and equality in China, but yet to obtain for us every facility for conducting an extensive trade with upwards of 350 millions theretofore secluded and beyond our reach, but then, as we fondly imagined, brought within the circle of western commerce;-when we remember all this, the comparison of the dealings of the two commercial years above given is cause for great astonishment and chagrin. Surely we were justified in thinking that so vast a mass of consumers a people without steam power or any of the modern mechanical improvements, inhabiting so immense an empire as the Chinese, and for ages having possessed but one narrow inlet on the seaboard for the commerce of European nations, suddenly thrown open to us at five different points, several of which are amongst the most important commercial places in the empire, and having many weighty reasons of curiosity, of necessity and of policy to cultivate a close connexion with us - would have given far greater impulse than is shown by the figures we have quoted, which represent our commerce with this vast country in 1846 as very considerably less valuable than that which in 1788 France carried on with its colony of St. Domingo! In times so arduous as those in which our lot is cast, and especially with the prospect of a monetary revolution, bearing we know not what consequences in its train, we are very closely urged at present to pursue an inquiry to a successful issue which, if practically taken advantage of, may be of very considerable importance to the commercial prosperity of this country. Although, no doubt, many of the consequences which, upon the first transpiration of occurrences such as those of 1841 and 1842 in China, would naturally and did actually suggest themselves to all who were

interested in the result were greater than those which upon due consideration we were warranted in expecting under the circumstances, yet in a far greater degree, are the actual consequences disproportionately and unduly small.

However stoically a phlegmatic looker-on might hold that the mercantile world was giving itself up to vain dreams of the immense results of the peace of 1842, it really is difficult to say that any estimate of the impulse ultimately to be given to our commerce by opening to it a nation of 350 millions or upwards of civilised, trading, calico-wearing human beings, hitherto secluded from us, which was in fact or which could with probability be entertained by commercial men, was or would be an exaggerated estimate. But, with the light of the actual events of the last ten years, it is not difficult to see that, looking to some of the surrounding circumstances, we should have measured more carefully the immediate prospect of the improved condition of Anglo-Chinese relations.

If we look back to the past history of China, we find that it was coveted as an ally by the long decayed monarchy of Persia; that, when in its full prime, its conquering arms gave that impetus to the savage Huns which, centuries afterwards, effected the downfal of imperial Rome, a period separated from us by eventful ages; that when Bertezena founded the Turkish monarchy, destined to overthrow the remains, not indeed of Roman virtue, but of Byzantine luxury and to establish and spread a false religion over a vast portion of the globe, he sued for, as a matter essential to his success, the hand of a daughter of the Chinese monarch. As to its civilisation, we have learned that when Helagabalus purchased the silk which so shocked the severe propriety of Pliny for its weight in gold, the populace of China used it for their common apparel; that when the classic literature of golden ages was perishing unknown to the ignorance or was falsified by the affectation and prejudices of scholiasts and ascetics, the walls of Nankin were placarded with advertisements of cheap lanterns and programmes of popular comedies; and that when the wise men of Greece were ridiculing the credulity which could believe that in sailing towards the west the sun had been observed on the right hand of the voyagers, professional astronomers were appointed in China to observe the movements of the sidereal heavens and determine the annual period, taking into consideration the precession of the equinoxes. As to their domestic undertakings, we find complete municipal organisation and a realm intersected with canals for public convenience ere the laws of the ten tables were promulgated or the Appian aqueducts constructed. As to their commerce, it ap

pears that they were the purveyors, not of the East alone, but also of the Roman empire, their voyages to Ceylon being probably the most extended which were known for ages before the commercial spirit had arisen in Europe. But as to the present external relations of an empire the population of which includes one-third of our race, and which covers an extent of territory by far exceeding that of any other state of which we have ever heard, we should learn that it secludes itself in its own bounds, that it declines foreign commerce as far as possible, that it endeavours to prevent the introduction of foreign improvements and to hinder the emigration of its citizens to other lands and that the only maritime traffic of any extent or importance which it conducts with any other country by its own merchants is that in grain. Thus much known, what would we venture to allege of the internal condition of China? Surely, that it had arrived, in the course of ages which have overthronged continents (all but desert when China teemed with an already numerous population), at a stationary point, had increased its population to a burdensome extent, had occupied in consequence all its productive lands, had devoted all the energies of its people to obtaining a livelihood, had arrested its progress in science and manufactures, and had lost a large proportion of its proper enterprising and energetic spirit.

As a matter of fact, this is the state in which China is at the present day. No 'margin of cultivation,' no sufficient remuneration for labour, a minimum of profits, the land farmed and owned in small holdings for domestic purposes, the people living from hand to mouth, so that an inundation, a hail-storm or a locust-swarm causes the most dreadful suffering in a whole province, although the Government is necessitated to keep large public granaries to guard against such occurrences. Manufactures even are for the most part carried on by individual exertion; the loom in the house is the order of things in the whole of the immense silk district of Su-chau, and such a thing as improvement or change is quite unknown. Every one looks back instead of forward, their golden age seems bygone, they live in it instead of in the dark future or the toilsome present, and under these circumstances there is something to our minds touching instead of ridiculous in that attachment to 'old custom' which is perhaps the most peculiar feature in the Chinese character.

Now, it will be seen that such a country is not in a position to enter at once into a foreign traffic proportioned to its size and importance. Where every rood is husbanded by hand, where the hill is terraced off into beds covered with transported soil,