CHINESE PROGRESS.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1540, 24 January 1879, Page 3

CHINESE PROGRESS.

[London “ Times.”]

China has one advantage in its favor. So perverse has generally been the policy of Pekin that European critics are sure to welcome with the warmth of hope any change in it. When Pekin abandoned its belief that the Chinese is the only nation in the universe, and that the rest of mankind are a number of detached tribes wandering about in search of what they may steal from the Celestial Empire, Europe was convinced that the regeneration of three hundred millions of people was close at hand. The establishment of Legations in London and Berlin was supposed to demonstrate an utter revolution in Chinese ideas ; the Ministers were welcomed os a kind of channel along which British ideas and cottons and capital were to flow into the heart of China, and remit thence ten per cent, dividend upon all three. The choice of an experienced Mandarin as Minister in London proved to sanguine minds that Chinese bureaucracy has at last been pierced and penetrated by a conviction that China must enter into the community of Stales. The dismissal of that respected and respectable diplomatist in favor of a countryman who has never yet held office is hailed with equal pleasure as evidence that the Court of Pekin desires that Western ideas shall pass to it undimmed by any possible halo of official prejudice. Whatever change Chinese statescraft may make in its system of dealing with Europe, it may reckon with tolerable confidence that people hero will place a favorable construction upon the step taken. Any envoy Pekin may send will be received with goodwill and interest. Wo regret to part with his Excellency Kwoh, to whose cheerful aspect at all festivities, from the Ascot racecourse to Guildhall, we have grown accustomed. Our tears, however, are already half dried up at the agreeable prospect of his successor. That we shall have to share his Excellency Tseng-ki-tze, like his Excellency Kwoh, with Paris is to be lamented. But, after all, it is only what many of us do with ourselves. London must take care to make itself so charming that it shall engross the larger half of the Minister’s attentions. That we are only to have a Resident Minister, while St. Petersburg is to bo honored with the presence of an Ambassador need rouse no international jealousies. From Russia Pekin has something to gain, or rat her regain,- to England a Chinese envoy comes only as a friend. We may be well satisfied that our expected guest brings at once more modest diplomatic titles and more modest diplomatic claims. His new Excellency’s personal rank will, at any rate, cover any disparity in official dignity between him and his St. Petersburg colleague. Young —at least, we will suppose so—actually a Marquis, and just out of mourning for his father, Tseng-ki-tze might almost inspire the Premier to leave Cyprus and Cabul and indite aChinese “Lothair.” London society will open its arms with rapture to so fascinating a citizen of the world. All that England asks in return is that he shall instruct his fellowcountrymen that we Western barbarians have, by some happy accident, lighted upon certain mechanical appliances which China would benefit by ingrafting upon her immemorial civilization. That is the point of view from which home-keeping Englishmen look upon the creation of this diplomatic conduit of communication between the United Kingdom and the Chinese Empire. We are content if Chinamen will only take the trouble to observe what our civilisation has done for us. Wo are convinced that the spectacle of abundance, which must make St. Giles’s appear an abode of luxury to men who know the depths poverty can roach in Canton and Pekin cannot but impress a Mandarin with the utility of the steam-engine and the spinningjenny. In Shanghai and Hongkong it is evident, from the letter we publish to-day from our correspondent in the former city, that a somewhat different opinions obtains. Chinamen are suspected there of a wish to pick the brains of Europe, and then be their own engineers, and manufacturers, and merchants. Shanghai and Hongkong had hoped that Chinese Ambcssadors would open a sort of registry office at which the Court of Pekin might apply for the assistance of European men of business and European capitalists. They will be disagreeably disappointed if China to Europe only to learn the more quickly to dispense with European services. The European colony in China is apparently haunted by a suspicion that the Mandarins are beginning to understand the lesson it has for the last thirty years been repeating to them, but that they have learned it too literally, European merchants and manufacturers have been reciting in season and out of season, “We will construct railways throughout the empire to carry our manufactures to its remotest cornersand “ We will launch merchant steamers to conduct ilia entire coast trade of China with our capita] and to our profit.” What Chinamen were expected to have the intelligence to do was to render these simple texts into the correlative form, and respond gratefully, “you shall construct the railways to carry your manufactures and “ You shall launch steamers with your capital and to your profit.” On the contrary, the Chinese Party of Progress is accused of rehearsing parrotlike the maxims in the first person, and undertaking to do for itself what its kind tutors could do for it so very much more both to its and their advantage. The Chinese Party of Progress is the party of the all-powerful A'iceroy Li-Hung-Chang. Through him it exists and in it is impersonated. Power is not held in Asia by a life tenure, and what would become of the Party of Progress should anything happen to Li-Hung-Ohang it would be unkind to prophesy. While, however, he lives and rules, the Young China party will found its companies and anticipate profits upon their enterprises. In the first attempt it has not been very successful. The Chinese Steam Navigation Company has been unable as yet to coin the patriotism of its promoters into dividends. But the Viceroy very properly is not discouraged by initial difficulties, and his ingenious brain has devised a most ambitious programme of analogous schemes. Chinese coal-mines, iron coalmines, and ironworks are to be opened. When, we presume, they have attained such a stage that the Km pirn will no longer be dependent on British iron-masters, China i,to have her railrouda. The whole, however, is to be accomplished by Chinese hands and

Chinese capital. Li-Hung-Chang does not disdain to use the knowledge of European shipbuilders and European engineers for the laying down cf the lines of his steamers and the survey of his ironclads. But what Europeans have started Chinamen are to carry out. The Viceroy is preparing, by sending Chinese engineer students to United States colleges, to dispense with any aid whatever in the near future.