250 . NOTE VIII. MEANS OF EXTENDING FREE TRADE TO THE WHOLE COAST OF CHINA. Interest of the Americans in this question—Chinese restrictions on trade-the Chinese people more inclined to commerce than the English or Americans - Chinese government dislikes foreign trade on political grounds-restrictions lead to a free trade-description of the free trade which actually takes place in China-obstacles to the extension of this free trade-several modes of removing those obstacles-one mode will endanger the trade between America and Chinasafest, cheapest, and best mode, commercial stations near the coast of China-to be formed, if not by Englishmen, then by Americans. A GREAT change in the English trade with the Chinese is about to take place. The strict monopoly of that trade by the holders of India stock will presently cease. The English will soon be free, so far as their own government is concerned, to trade with the Chinese; but it does not follow that the Chinese will be free to trade with the English. To every trade there must be two parties; and the advantages derived from trade depend on combination of power, or concert, for the distribution of employments. How are the English to obtain cheap silver, the produce of Chinese labour, wherewith to purchase cheap corn, the produce of Virginian labour, if the Chinese are not permitted to buy hardware and cotton goods, the produce of English labour? The escape of the English from a certain restraint will not of itself set the Chinese free. On the contrary, there appears some reason to fear, that the removal of restraints on the English may lead to greater restraints on the Chinese; and not merely as respects their trade with the English, but also in their trade with the Americans and others. And, at any rate, the trade between England and China could not be much enlarged without removing the actual restrictions on that trade, which are independent of the English, which depend either on the Chinese government or on the habits of the Chinese people. The nature of those restrictions and the means of entirely removing them form the subject of the following remarks, which are addressed to the Americans as well as to the English; seeing that both nations are concerned in the establishment of a free and secure trade with China, and that if the English will not establish such a trade the Americans may do it for them, as will be shown presently. If I were to add, that some steps had been taken with this view by Americans, not a few of the English would be jealous of their "transatlantic brethren." Good! the sooner the two nations begin to rival each other in undertakings of this kind, the better for both of them. Much as the English and Americans are given to trade, in that respect they are far surpassed by the people of China. "The propensity to truck, barter and exchange," which Adam Smith describes as the original cause of wealth and civilization, (it is the first cause after a surplus produce has been obtained by combination of power) is stronger and much more general in China than in any other country. Upon this point there is abundant evidence.* Yet the Chinese have made less progress in the art of navigation than any other people addicted to commerce; and their government exceeds all others, whether of past or present times, in animosity to foreign trade. Upon these main facts, the commercial disposition of the Chinese people, their ignorance of navigation, and the dislike of their government to foreign trade, must turn every speculation on the present subject. The people of China are most desirous to trade with foreigners; but their ignorance of navigation prevents them from trading out of China. Their foreign trade, therefore, is necessarily conducted * For the information of Americans some curious evidence of the industry, skill and commercial disposition, of the Chinese people is printed in the Appendix (No. 1.) in China, and depends on the presence of foreign dealers and foreign ships. This point should be carefully borne in mind. Trade with the Chinese never has been, and for ages to come never will be, conducted without the presence of foreign dealers and foreign ships on the coast of China. But the Chinese government detests or rather dreads foreigners, and lays all sorts of restrictions on their presence in China, confining them to a single port and subjecting them to many insults and injuries. If the propensity of foreigners to trade with the Chinese, and of the Chinese to trade with foreigners, were not stronger than the Chinese government, there would be no foreign trade in China. That government, however, has not much power over its own subjects. The men who compose it are, not Chinese, but Tartars who conquered China about two hundred years ago. Like the Mahomedans who conquered India, and the English who conquered and colonized Ireland, they are perfectly distinct from the subject race. The weakness of the rulers of China arises partly from their foreign origin and partly from the great extent of their empire. Such power as they possess depends solely on the ignorance and timidity of their subjects. Hence their dread of foreigners and their apparent animosity to foreign trade. If people could buy and sell without personal intercourse, the Tartar government of China would, by all accounts, encourage foreign trade for the sake of revenue. It is not the trade which they dislike, but the traders. Nor is their dread of foreigners surprising. "The history of European commerce in the East is really nothing but the history of a continued series of usurpations; nor can any one acquainted with the subject feel surprised, that such native princes as had the means excluded those from their territories, whose object was, not to maintain a fair and friendly commerce, but to extort oppressive privileges and to make conquests. conquests."* But, in addition to the fear lest foreigners should make conquests in China, the rulers of that country, being themselves foreigners and conquerors, dread lest their own subjects should be led, by intercourse with other foreigners, to think of rebellion. We have it in evidence that the mandarins of China, were, like the mandarins of England, terrified at the great French revolution. Every restriction which the government of China imposes on the intercourse between its subjects and foreigners, its acuteness and diligence in limiting that intercourse to what is indispensable for carrying on a very limited trade, the strict inforcement of rules by which foreigners were prevented from moving beyond a narrow spot set apart for their use, and foreign women are excluded from China, the care with which on such occasions as em * Edinburgh Review, No. CIV. |