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and the Chinese trader prefers it to goods, because, having brought his teas down from a far country, he can carry back silver easier than anything else; and in that land of "squeezes he can better conceal his profits from the keen-eyed mandarin, when those profits are in a hard mass of bullion, than if he was returning into the interior escorted by coolies carrying bales of British manufacture. Piracy, rebellion, and robbery are the normal condition of this vast empire, and it is that as much as the venality of the authorities which checks the circulation of our calicoes and woollens, our hardware and crockery. We are aware that it is the fashion to say, "Oh! the Chinese are a manufacturing nation, and although the power-loom has beat all the rest of the world, it must yield before Chinese manual industry." We believe this to be simple nonsense. The natives of India were manufacturers of calico until we entered the field against them. The squaws of North America were likewise manufacturesses until Yankee drills came into the market. The South Sea islanders made "tappa" far cheaper than we once could afford to clothe them; and the Peruvian, Chilian, and Araucanian weaved "ponchos," until Manchester put her shoulder to the work, and beat the handloom out of the most remote valleys of the Andes. And when was it that the European manufacturer thus succeeded? We reply, when he was able to compete against native industry in supplying native wants directly in the native market-not at some remote point a thousand miles from it, where his article was loaded with heavy expenses incident to land-carriage, or exorbitant and unjust taxes-and that is exactly the position in China that we must strive to attain. To sell our manufactures, we must deliver them upon the spot where they are required-that is, in every province of China; and as I have before said, to have cheap Chinese products we must buy them at the places of growth.

At present our trading stations are

situated on the remote confines of a land as large as Europe, the interior of which, beyond that we know it to be very fertile and very populous, we are supremely ignorant of. We are required to land woollens in the tropics for the use of a people living in a remote corner of the empire, where the winters are most severe. Fancy, for instance, if a trader who desired to compete with the woollen manufactures of St Petersburg, was compelled to land them at Bayonne, and pay for the carriage, as well as to bribe fifty customhouses, before they reached the Neva: would he think it strange if his cloth could not in price compete with the native article under such circumstances? Yet our position, so far as the woollen trade with China is concerned, is exactly similar. We know that the inhabitants of the region in which the five ports are situated do not need our cloths; but we have to land them at Canton or Shanghai, in the hope of their reaching Pekin, or the still more remote and rigorous climates of Kansco and Shansi! As yet we have had no seaport, no access to all that portion of China, inhabited by some two hundred millions of souls, in which the severity of the winter renders it likely that they need our woollens.

The arguments which apply to the introduction of our woollen manufactures into China, apply with still greater force to the cheap productions of our cotton manufactories. We need not reiterate them, but will, from the table of exports and imports found in the remote city of Hankow, when it was visited by Lord Elgin,* point out an interesting fact or two, to show why the cotton manufactures of Great Britain will not compete with the native ones until we deliver them cheaper at the interior marts.

It will there be seen that a piece of common grey sheeting, 38 yards long and 39 inches broad, is sold by our inerchants at Shanghai for about 12s., or say, roughly, 4d. a yard; the same material was selling in the Hankow shops for 64d. (or 1 part

132

See Appendix III., vol. ii. p. 493, Lord Elgin's Mission to China and Japan.

By LAURENCE OLIPHANT, Esq.

of 52 pence) per yard; an increase of 24d. per yard, or 6s. 4d. per piece, that increased price being simply due to a land or water transit of about six hundred miles into China; and the material would have treble that distance to travel before it could reach the farther borders of the empire. Yet, in spite of its price, it was selling, and, we were told, was in much use for many common purposes. Now the native manufacture of an equally common description, though only 10 inches wide, was being retailed in that same city of Hankow for about 2d. per yard; it would require, of course, three breadths, a yard long, of that material, to render it equal to a yard of our sheeting. The result, therefore, was, that a quantity of English manufacture at Hankow, which cost 6 d., had to compete with a native material, coarser, it is true, but stronger, which cost 6d., and yet it did do so with considerable success; and we may safely say, that when our cottons are delivered at Hankow at a more reasonable rate of profit, the consumption of them must increase amazingly and it is truly monstrous to suppose, if our merchants find it worth while to export a distance of 17,000 miles a piece of manufacture to Shanghai, and retail it there for 12s., that a Chinese broker is to carry it only 600 miles into the interior, and extort from his countrymen 18s. 4d. for it. It is this extortion, and not the handloom industry of China, which has so long left unfulfilled the just expectations of Great Britain in relation to her export trade with China. The extraordinary charges upon the common manufacture which we have given as an example, were still more gross, when we take into consideration the Hankow prices of chintz, brocades, and twills.

Chintz, selling at about 7d. a yard at Shanghai, was selling at 103d. per yard in Hankow; brocades, worth 7d. a yard, in Shanghai, were being retailed at an additional 5d. per yard profit or the trader from the western provinces of China who visited Hankow had to pay 40s. for a piece of English manufacture, which we could have sold him at a profit in Shanghai for 248. In short, these

figures ought to satisfy us that the Chinese native monopolists at the seaports have no small interest at stake in confining us to the frontier, where our places of commerce are now situated; and we have pretty good proof of what we have before stated, that the attention and energy of our merchants have as yet been mainly directed to the exporting of Chinese products, and not to the introduction of the fruits of British labour. Access to the interior of China, and access to every province of China, we now have by treaty-right-it is all we need to fully succeed in being to her what we are to nearly all the rest of the world-her manufacturer. The millions within the rich borders of the Central Land will hail our arrival amongst them. It is alone the official and the monopolist who are against us. To them pressure must be applied; in doing that we need not harm the industrious and sympathising masses. Yet we must not fail to impress upon all, that though we be traders as they are, as anxious for gain and as keen in questions of profit, we are, at the same time, much to be preferred as friends, and most troublesome and warlike enemies; and the Hong merchant and retired mandarin, who pays the starving labourer to don the dress and arms of a brave, and urges him to resist the invasion of free trade and European civilisation, must be clearly shown, what they do not yet understand, that the Englishman who shall boldly throw himself into the heart of China on behalf of his country's interests as well as his own, on the faith of the engagements made with its Government, must be justly treated; whilst, on the other hand, we will not fail to give assistance, and do all in our power to prevent our traders being smugglers-that they shall pay all lawful dues, and conform to the laws as far as a Christian may do so. This, we argue, may be all easily brought about by a summary punishment of the Court of Pekin for its late perfidy, by insisting upon our right of having a representative at Pekin, who shall communicate directly with the prime-minister or sovereign; and, lastly, by giving all countenance and support to the

establishment of the new - raised Chinese and European boards of customs in China-a measure which we are happy to see advancing steadily, in spite of much covert as well as open opposition.

We have been so tempted to enlarge upon the subject of the importance of opening up the interior trade of China,that space will not admit of our

now entering upon the subject of how the punishment of the late treachery at the Peiho may be avenged without damage to the present trade with China, or how the expenses of the military and naval expedition now called for may be reimbursed to us in the form of an indemnity ; but we hope to do so in our next or following Number.

STABAT MATER.

[IT is scarcely necessary to state that this well-known hymn is translated in deference to its poetical merits, not to its doctrine.]

STOOD the maiden Mother weeping,
By the Cross her sad watch keeping,
Near her dying Son and Lord;
Woes wherewith the heart is broken,
Sorrows never to be spoken,

Smote her, pierced her like a sword.

O with what vast griefs oppressed
Bow'd the more than woman blessed,
Mother of God's only Son!

O what bitterness came o'er her,
When the dread doom pass'd before her,
Seeing her Beloved undone !

Say, can any stand by tearless,
When so woe-begone and cheerless
Mourns the Virgin undefiled,
Or the rising anguish smother,
When he sees the tenderest mother
Suffer with her suffering Child?

Sacrifice for sins presented,
Jesus she beheld tormented,

For her people scourged and slain

In his hour of desolation,

In the spirit's separation,

She beheld her dear One's pain.

;

Love's pure fountain, let me borrow
From thine anguish sense of sorrow;
Make me, Mother, mourn with thee;
Be my heart's best offerings given
Evermore to Christ in heaven;
Let me his true servant be!

Holy Mother, draw me, win me;
Plant the Crucified within me ;

Brand His wounds upon my heart!
For my sake thy Child was stricken;
With His blood my spirit quicken;

Half His agonies impart !

Let me feel thy sore affliction,

And my Master's crucifixion

Share, till life's last dawn appears;
So, with thee His cross frequenting,
Daily would I kneel repenting,
Meek companion of thy tears.

Virgin-queen, renown'd for ever,
Not from me thy sweetness sever;
Bid me drink thy sorrow's cup,
Till my sympathising spirit
All Christ's bitter pangs inherit,
All His bleeding wounds count up.

Pierce me with my Saviour's piercings,
Let me taste the cross and cursings,
And for love the wine-press tread!
Through thy kindling inspiration,
Virgin, let me find salvation

In the doom of quick and dead!

Let Christ's guardian cross attend me,
And His saving death defend me
Cradled in His arms of love!
When the body sleeps forsaken,
Mother, let my soul awaken

In God's Paradise above!

P. S. WORSLEY.

[In our last Number, a previous translation of the Dies Ira was ascribed, by a misprint, to "Dr Norris," instead of to the Rev. W. J. Irons, D.D.]

HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM 1815 TO 1852.-ALISON.

He is a bold man who undertakes to write cotemporary history. If no task can be more interesting, certainly none can be more ungrateful. Whoever would say the truth, boldly and unshrinkingly, upon the conduct of all parties-sparing neither when they are in error, bending before the weight of no living reputation, however great-will do a work which posterity indeed will prize and appreciate, but which, in its own generation, will be received by a perfect storm of obloquy. And just in proportion as his work is impartial and likely to last, is the extent of the indignation to which it will give rise. This has been the case in all ages, and must be so for ever. There is nothing so hateful to men as one who disturbs their habitual train of thought. In former times, great innovators, men of independent habits of thought, were burned and tortured. They fed the auto-da-fés of Castile, and filled

the dungeons of the Inquisition in Italy. Now they are only assailed in reviews and burned in effigy in magazines.

Sir Archibald Alison has undertaken the task of writing a History of his own Times-from 1815 to 1848. With a stout heart and a strong will he has written it, following out in a fearless and uncompromising spirit what he thought the truth, bowing neither to the trammels of party nor the influence of cotemporary greatness; ever stating with candour the opinions of others -always decided in the expression of his own; depicting with a most praiseworthy impartiality the arguments and the facts educed by the contending parties; narrating the flow of events in a narrative always interesting and often eloquent; casting broad views over the tangled maze of politics; throwing a clear light on the important points, and

passing with a rapid hand over the unimportant details of history; blaming alike the foreign policy of Lord Palmerston and the financial policy of Sir Robert Peel-the bigoted resistance of the old Tories to Catholic Emancipation and the republican dreams of the advanced Liberalsthe refusal of the Conservatives to extend the representation to the great towns, and the haste of the Whigs to surrender the government of the country to a tyrant majority of the tenpounders. He has produced a work pleasing at present to no individual party in the State, but all on that account the more likely to command the attention of posterity. Perhaps the highest tribute which could be paid to his impartiality is the fact that it is hard to say whether he has been assailed with most rancour in the pages of Tory, Whig, or Radical periodicals. Impartiality with regard to past events all adinire; impartiality with regard to present events all abominate. Sir Archibald has not fallen down and worshipped before the golden calf of Free-Trade, therefore he is howled at as a heretic fit for the stake; he does not regard the opinion of the multitude as a pure well of wisdom undefiled, therefore he is scouted as an antiquated bigot. He has judged the present as it had been the past. He has fearlessly examined it and probed it, and it has writhed at the touch; he has meted out to it a different judgment from that which it has assigned to itself. Posterity is the jury which must give the verdict.

:

The history of the present is essentially different from the history of the past, and must be compared with a different standard. With regard to the last, the materials are ample and accessible, and the passions are stilled with regard to the first, the materials are few and difficult of access, and the passions are excited. Sir Archibald has treated of both. His History of Europe during the French Revolution has taken its place as the standard English history of the period, as that of Thiers is the French. With regard to its merit there is little difference of opinionbut it is not with it that we have now to do. His cotemporary His

tory must be judged by a different measure: like Burnet's, it is essentially a history "of his own times"of its passions and its politics, its greatness and its littleness, its matchless progress, its unknown direction. The difficulties in the way of such a task are enormous-so great that no one can entirely surmount them. The materials, on many points numerous, on some are almost entirely deficient; the secret documents have not yet been made public, those published are all strongly tinged with the impression and the feelings of the moment. The historian, so to speak, has to construct his own materials, to exercise the most extraordinary judgment in selection-to discriminate with an almost intuitive power into what is true and falseto test by statistics the correctness or incorrectness of the conclusions he has arrived at-to supply by personal inquiry and recollection the deficiencies of the authorities within his reach

to reconcile discordant judgments and assimilate contradictory facts. To do this perfectly is impossibleour only wonder is that Sir Archibald has been able to accomplish in this way so much.

In Sir Archibald's History there is one great and peculiar merit, which alone would mark it as a work of primary value, and stamp it as one of perfect impartiality; and that is the very able summary of the arguments adduced on both sides in the English and French parliaments upon every subject of great and enduring interest. Most readers may imagine, from their being given with inverted commas, that they are simply transcribed from the Parliamentary records of the day. But this is a very great mistake; we should say that they are the most original, the most laborious, and the most valuable part of Sir Archibald's work. In the space of a few pages will there be found the contents frequently of half a volume of Hansard-the whole arguments for and against every great social and political change of modern times, stated with the greatest clearness, the greatest force, and, we must add, the most perfect impartiality. In this Sir Archibald's legal education seems to have availed him much. He seems to take a

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