Chapter XXVI: Appendix: III

CONFIDENTIAL DESPATCH TO SIR GEORGE BONHAM, DATED JUNE 17, 1852. (EXTRACT.)

If I might without presumption express an opinion on our general policy in China, I should add that it seems in danger of being paralysed by the two antagonistic forces [alluded to in the preamble], and by necessities difficult to reconcile. The magnitude and extreme importance of our interests in the East--in commerce and revenue (for, as I have shown, the China trade is the connecting-link between Great Britain and India, and necessary to complete the circle of trading operations)--suggest on the one hand the necessity of avoiding all measures that may rashly jeopardise such interests, yet nevertheless make it imperative on the other to adopt firmly and unhesitatingly whatever steps may be necessary to prevent loss or deterioration. How these can best be reconciled is the problem to be solved. As late as the last war, throughout all our previous intercourse the attempt had been made to arrive at the solution by a system of temporising and concession, even to that which was unjust and injurious, and this steadily carried out, with a few rare and brief exceptions. Our policy since the treaty has manifested a tendency to an opposite course, encouraged no doubt by the result of the first determined stand made. It has, nevertheless, been so hesitatingly developed that we appear to halt between the two. In words we have asserted resistance to insult or wrongful treatment, but in acts we have not seldom temporised and submitted. The fruit of this policy we now are beginning to reap. Principles of action have sometimes been asserted and then abandoned, instead of being persisted in until the end was accomplished. In dealing with the Chinese, however, nothing appears to be so necessary as to keep the ground once assumed. If this be true, there cannot be too much caution used in first asserting or contending for a right; but that step once taken, there is no safe halting-place between it and full success. A course of alternate opposition and submission cannot do otherwise than end in defeat; and defeat in this country is never limited to its immediate consequences. It has appeared, on looking back through the ten years which have now elapsed since the termination of the war, that the first half of the period was passed in comparative security under the strong influence its events were calculated to exercise on the Chinese mind; but, true to their invariable policy, they have never ceased to seek by every means in their power to make the British authorities develop under what instructions they were acting and to penetrate into their true spirit, in order to ascertain the limits to which our sufferance would extend and the nature of the powers of resistance or retaliation her Majesty's Government were ready to authorise. I think it cannot be matter of doubt to any one resident in China throughout this period, that during the latter portion the Chinese have felt assured of the essentially pacific determination of our Government and the policy of endurance and sufferance in all cases of minor wrongs. And, assured under such a system (with the known impossibility of any direct action in Peking), they have, during the last two years more especially, felt emboldened, systematically, by a series of apparently small encroachments and aggressions, to undermine our position, and to restore, as nearly as may be, the state of things existing before the war, extending the system to all the ports.

With this conviction I have thought it desirable to bring before her Majesty's plenipotentiary in detail many illustrations of the deteriorating influences at work at this port, and now venture to pass these rapidly in review, that their collective evidence may not be wanting. And in order that I may be brief, I shall merely note in the margin the number and dates of various despatches bearing upon similar matters, without further reference to their contents. By these I think it will be seen that the general current and tendency of all the official acts for the last two years upon which I have frequently commented as they occurred has been distrust, and strongly adverse alike to our trade and the stability of our position.

Evidence, I think, will be found in these records to establish the fact that the present Taotai Wu (or Samqua, as he is more familiarly known, of Canton trading memory) has been especially selected as the chief agent to initiate, and the fit instrument for carrying out, a retrograde policy: his character, means, and the general direction of his efforts to damage our local position, territorial and social--to cripple and restrict our trade, and to Cantonise the whole of our relations both with people and authorities in the north--are all in keeping with this mission, and incomprehensible on any other supposition.

The steps of his progress have been carefully watched, and in the despatches noted in the margin traced, together with their effects--neither very apparent on the surface. These may perhaps best be considered by aid of a somewhat arbitrary division as to subjects rather than chronologically, for they have generally run on conterminous and parallel lines. Starting from the Tsingpu affair, in the spring of 1848, and his baffled efforts to pluck from us the best fruit of the risks incurred to vindicate an important principle, from which date he hung about the place--in the background it is true, but not the less busy as a spy from Nanking, between which place and Shanghai, occasionally acting Taotai, at others absent, he oscillated until the fit time appeared to have arrived. After the accession of the new emperor, Lin was displaced from the Taotai office, and he was finally installed by "imperial appointment" to put his hand to the work before him. His steps may be traced in the sinister influences and obstruction brought to bear upon all our interests.

The _land tenure and regulations_ under which a foreign colony had rapidly risen covering more than a hundred acres of land, as an element of strength and independence to the British more especially, seems to have excited both the jealousy and the fears of the Chinese authorities. There seemed no limit to its progress and development; each year saw more and more land occupied, while houses of a large and costly description rapidly filled up the vacant spaces.

Before Wu came _ostensibly_ upon the scene some progress had been made in the creation of difficulties, and the authorities having in the spring of 1849 granted a large and absurdly disproportionate tract to the French, over which the French consul claimed a territorial jurisdiction, the national susceptibilities of the Americans gave the opportunity of bringing French and Americans, and the latter and the English, into collision, and they were not slow to profit by it to set the land regulations practically aside while officially appearing to uphold them.

The desire of the community to carry out an extravagant and not very practicable scheme for a new park or exercise-course that should enclose nearly the whole arable ground and villages within our limits afforded the next opportunity, and the arrogant humour and superstitions of the Fukein clans supplied the ready instruments for inflicting a second blow upon the rights and security of the foreigner at Shanghai connected with the occupation of land.

These attacks and aggressions have since been perseveringly followed up--popular commotions, abusive and menacing placards, having all been used in turns to the damage of our position, and the result has been discredit, broken regulations, divided and antagonistic pretensions between the two most numerous classes of foreign residents--the British and American--and between all foreigners and the Fukein clans, the most turbulent and aggressive of the native population at the port,--a result of which, looking to all the present embarrassment and future danger to our interests it is calculated to produce, I am bound to say I think Samqua may well be proud. The national vanity of the French leading them to an absurd and useless acquisition, the love of exercise of the British leading the equestrians to press an ill-advised and impracticable scheme for a three-mile racecourse, and the national susceptibilities of the Americans leading them to dispute the land tenure which hitherto had been the condition of their own security,--all have been adroitly turned to the greatest advantage, to the profit of the Chinese and the serious detriment of the foreigner.

The progress made in creating obstacles to our _commerce_ has been not less worthy of remark. For a system of total laxity in the custom-house administration under Lin a capricious alternation of vigilance and neglect, under which oppressive acts of partiality and injustice are frequently perpetrated, has been substituted, to the great derangement of operations in trade. The carrying trade has been harassed and impeded, and the Taotai is now actively engaged in efforts to get the cargo-boats under his exclusive control, and to organise a _cohong_ of five firms on the model of the ancient establishments at Canton, while already--I believe at his suggestion (indeed he scarcely denies it)--information has reached me that a new transit duty of seven mace per picul has been levied at Chung-An on the produce proceeding thence from the Black Tea districts to Shanghai. A duty of over 7 per cent, in violation of one of the most important of our treaty stipulations, with a monopoly of cargo-boats, a right to levy new transit duties, and a _cohong_--the three leading advantages secured by the treaty vanish. It is vain to disguise the fact, for nothing can be clearer or more certain. On these points I have been collecting detailed information, and shall shortly be enabled to write more fully on the subject. I beg your Excellency in the meantime to rest assured that the main facts have already been placed beyond doubt. In connection with these, freedom of access to different points in the interior and with Ningpo by the inland route as advantages long enjoyed have also attracted attention, and some more feeble efforts have been made to throw obstacles in the way.

In the _administration of justice_ perhaps more than in any other directions adverse influences have been brought to bear with complete effect. Redress for any injury inflicted on a foreigner, protection from frauds, or recovery of debts, are all wholly unattainable. The action of the Chinese tribunals in our behalf is null and void, and the course taken by the authorities in all cases referred to there amounts to a total denial of justice. The act of the Taotai in seizing and flogging Mr ----'s boatmen was only wanting to withdraw from the foreigners all protection dependent upon the Chinese laws and their administration under our treaties.

Under these three heads, therefore, I would sum up the progressive and evident deterioration in our position here. The tenure of land, the operations of trade, the administration of justice, have all been objects of attack, and with serious prejudice. That, however, which is at present evident as the effect of the steps taken, forms but a small part of the injury which will in a very short period be too manifest to be overlooked if no determined steps are taken to reverse the policy now pursued. The time, I am firmly persuaded, has arrived for meeting by energetic action these insidious attacks--as the _least dangerous course_--if our most important interests here are really to be defended with any effect.

How this may best be done I feel your Excellency is entitled to demand from the officer who seeks so earnestly to impress you with a conviction that action is necessary, and I have no wish to shrink from the responsibility of suggesting measures by which I conceive some positive good may be effected, to repair the mischief, and much impending evil at all events averted.

In reference to the land, also, it would seem very desirable that some understanding should be come to with the United States _chargé d'affaires_ by which any participation in the advantages of the British location, consistent with the security of all, should be freely conceded, while anything incompatible _with this condition_ must be as certainly resisted, in their interest not less than ours. If Dr Parker prove impracticable I see no resource but a reference home, when I trust all the real importance of the questions at issue to the _interests of British trade and the British position at this port_ will be steadily kept in view; nor should it be forgotten that in its maintenance all foreign States are deeply interested, whatever the Americans for the moment may think. Any injury to our position must recoil with double force upon so weak and small a minority as they are when left to stand alone.

As regards the measures now in progress for organising a _cohong_, levying new transit duties, and creating a monopoly of cargo-boats, all tending in the most serious degree to fetter our trade, in indirect violation of the express stipulations of our treaty, I confess there seems to be but one course consistent with the credit of our Government or the defence of our interests, and that is resolutely and firmly to resist them as infractions of treaty. Two modes of doing this, however, suggest themselves. The one is by active proceedings--prohibiting the payment of any maritime duties by British subjects until satisfaction is obtained, and a distinct intimation that if this does not suffice other _and more determined measures should follow_. The other involves a system of _negation_ that would be peculiarly embarrassing to the Chinese local authorities, and eventually to the Government at Peking. This may be carried out by simply holding the treaty to be _in abeyance_ by their own acts, and declining to take any steps with British subjects to enforce the conditions--whether as regarded customs, access to the interior, the purchase of land, or the administration of justice--so long as the measures objected to were persisted in.

In reference to these two courses, I will not hesitate to say that, if left to my discretion, I should adopt the first; but the condition of ultimate success would be the certainty that, if the object was not attained by such means, her Majesty's Government would feel pledged to send a squadron to the mouth of the Grand Canal next spring with an imperative demand for the Taotai's disgrace and the reversal of all this obnoxious policy, and authority to resort to coercive measures if not listened to.

If, however, it should be deemed preferable to incur the risk of doing nothing--or what, I confess, appears to me even more dangerous, to make protests, or demonstrations which there is no serious intention of following up to their legitimate conclusion--the negative policy is of course the only one to be attempted. The responsibility of the initiative would then be thrown upon the Chinese themselves. The tables would be turned, and the Chinese will be left to right themselves as they best could, while a large revenue will slip through their hands and manifold complications and embarrassments in their relations with foreigners arise to their confusion. The task, in fine, they now assign to us would devolve upon them, and their sole remedy, if they did not choose to give way, would be to stop the trade; but as that would be a plain and ostensible _casus belli_, they will not attempt it.

If, on the other side, nothing effective be done, I must frankly state my conviction that our position in the north will rapidly deteriorate, and our relations be embroiled, if not irreparably injured. I believe means for the amelioration of both may be safely taken, and have long been required; but I feel still more strongly convinced that at no distant period they _must_ be taken, and the longer they are delayed the greater will be the ultimate cost, and the more imminent the hazard to our future trade and relations with China.

If I am correct in these inferences, the conclusion of the whole must be that the time has arrived when it will be no longer safe to defer strong and effective measures in defence of our interests, and that there is a clear necessity for present action to avert at no distant period a costly war and a shock to this empire it is so ill capable of sustaining, that it must of necessity be attended with great peril not only to the present dynasty but to the existing social organisation of the country.