UNIV. OF CALE 101 660 feet of frontage, with about 1000 feet of depth. Within these narrow limits is conducted the whole foreign trade of the Celestial Empire, amounting to from $30,000,00 to $40,000,000 annually. The factories are all of granite or brick, and present a handsome and substantial front. The ground on which they stand, as also most of the buildings themselves, are owned by the Hong-merchants. We have now filled the space which, at the outset, we proposed in our own mind as the limit of our labour. We have left unsaid much that we would gladly have introduced, in further illustration of the peculiar characteristics of this unique and interesting race. The Chinese have been, repeatedly, denounced in terms savouring little of Christian forbearance and charity. In their business transactions, they have been presented to our imagination as a nation of cheats; in their bearing towards foreigners, as scornful and repulsive to the last degree of supercilious self-complacency; and in their own social relations, as bereft of every noble sentiment and generous sympathy. The policy, especially, of excluding foreign traders from all but a single port of the Empire, has been made the subject of the most acrimonious denunciations. Far be it from us to enter the lists in defence of this policy; nor will we take up the proffered gauntlet on the general question of Chinese respectability and worth. But truth and justice are suitors at the bar, and demand a few words in explanation of one or two points, which seem not to be generally understood. We have already seen that this people, at an early day, sought commercial connexions with various of the neighbouring nations; that the Arabians traded freely with them, wherever they pleased; that the earliest European visiters were received with marked kindness, and treated with extraordinary hospitality; and that the Catholic missionaries had free admission to all parts, and made and baptized converts without let or hindrance. These zealous and able sectaries were frequently promoted to the highest dignities of the Empire. They founded churches at their will; and hundreds of thousands of Chinese were, nominally at least, through their exertions, converted to the Christian faith. They continued in favour till they indiscreetly began to tamper with government affairs, and attempted to undermine the ancient institutions of the realm. No restrictions of place were imposed upon those western merchants who first frequented the shores of China. Every port was open to their enterprise, and they were not required to confine their dealings to any defined spot or particular class of merchants. But the burning jealousies and fierce wranglings perpetually kept up between the subjects of the different European governments that sought to share in the rich gains of the China trade, roused the suspicions of the Chinese, and inspired no very favourable opinion of their character. The abominable arts to which the foreigners, under the stings of a base cupidity, resorted to injure each other, would seem almost to justify the epithet Fanquis, or "foreign demons," applied to them by the natives. These circumstances, together with various positive abuses of the liberties of trade at first freely granted, caused the government to commence at length the work of abridging the privileges of the foreigners, and the result appears in the rigid system of restrictions now in force. If European and American traders may fairly blame the illiberality of the Chinese, these have certainly just ground of complaint against the former, in the illegal practices to which their cupidity prompts them. Fifteen to twenty millions worth of opium is, in difiance of the laws and known wishes of the government, every year emptied upon the shores of China by Christian merchants! Alas for missionary effort, so long as the grasping avarice of the countries whence the missionaries go, sets at nought every Christian obligation before the very eyes of the people, whom it is sought to convert! Most devoutly do we long for the auspicious day, when the pure religion, that distilled from the heart and was embodied in the life of Jesus, shall shed its sacred influences on every human being; but, in our inmost soul, we believe it will not come, till the principles of that religion shall take a firmer hold upon the affections of those who profess to receive it, and rear a mightier embankment around their sordid and stormy passions. When the missionary shall find an auxiliary in the stainless life of every compatriot who visits the scene of his labours for purposes of pleasure or of gain,—when he can point not only to the pure maxims and sublime doctrines proclaimed by the Founder of his faith, but to the clustering graces that adorn its professors, then indeed will the day dawn, and the daystar of the millenium arise upon the world! -- |