PROGRESS IN CHINA.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 211, 11 February 1875, Page 2

PROGRESS IN CHINA.

(Pall Mall Gazette.')

Recent mails from China have brought intelligence of far greater interest and significance than the settlement of the Formosan difficulty. Under the pressure of a political necessity for rapid communication,. the Government sanctioned steps being taken for the erection of a telegraphic line between the capital of Tokien and Amoy, on the coast opposite Formosa. And under an equally imperious demand for coal to feed their war steamers and transports, Li Hung-Chang, the Viceroy of Pechihli, has obtained the Imperial sanction to work the coal mines near a place called Rung Ching. in the south-west of that province, with foreign machinery. Already the order has been despatched to England for the purchase of the necessary plant and the engagement of engineers and skilled miners No more important move in all its consequences has ever been made by the Chinese. All the more significant and important that it has been spontaneous, and sole y by their own interest-*, only in this way, and under siwh conditions, as we have repeatedly said, can any advance be made ; at their own time, in their own way, and for some essentially Chinese object, quite independent of any effort or insistence on the part of foreign States or foreign merchants. We have also pointed out as more than probable that, whenever the time should come, the initiative would be taken by some energetic viceroy, who would secure the acquiescence of the Peking Government. Such has been the history of the present revolution in a policy which has so long been obstinately maintained by

the Imperial authorities. How much is involved in these first steps is probably not very clearly seen at the capital. Hut with a telegraphic line in one province, and coal mines worked by foreign engineers and machinery in another, it is impossible that railroads should not quickly follow, (,h*na will then find herself compelled to move on, and at an accelerated rate, by a law far more irresistible than any force which could be applied from without by foreign Powers The obstacles hitherto opposed by will disappear as suddenly and as completely as they have done now at the word of command, not only as regards telegraphs, railroads, and mines, but in every other direction which progress may take. China enters into a new phase from this time, and these two departures from a traditional policy dating backwards a thousand years will form an epoch in the history of the Celestial Empire. Its foreign relations will, of necessity, be modified by increasing demands for European agencies in the interior to work their mechanical ap pliances, while there will be an increasing disposition on both Bides to accept such modifications of the ex-territorial clause in treaties as may remove one of the greatest obstacles to the free access of foreigners to the interior, and a right of residence for industrial and commercial purposes. In this direction diplomacy will find a legitimate field for the exercise of its best powers, and some consolation for the small part it has had to play in these far-reaching measures of the Chinese Government. There is nothing, perhaps, more significant, and at the same time so instructive, as the conclusion to be drawn from the history of these unforeseen advances. Not only was diplomacy powerless to effect either of the objects now attained b> the independent action of the Chinese Government for their own ends, but these immediate ends would have had no existence save for the efforts the Chinese have been making these twenty years past to create arsenals and steam fleets for warlike purposes and with hostile rather than peaceable intentions towards foreigners. The re nits so long desired in the interests of foreigners are due at last to the means taken by the Chinese to place themselves in a position to resist all attempts on the part of the Treaty Powers to secure them. *