THE CHINESE QUESTION. What Li Hung Chang is About.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 429, 18 December 1889, Page 6

THE CHINESE QUESTION. What Li Hung Chang is About.

It begins to be very apparent what Li Hung Chang, the governing power of China, is about. Some months ago he publicly announced that 'China would not submit to the violation treaty engagements by the United States.' Just what he meant to do about it did not appear. He seotns to have impressed the good Bishop Fowler with the idea that he meant to do some awful things when he got ready with his war ship?. The Shanghai press told us the other day that he intended to turn Americans out of China, bag and baggage. Our own press has talked wildly about reprisals, because it did not know what it might be that we should be called upon to resent. But Li Hunsr Chang's difficulty begins to crop out. He can't at present talk back as he would like, because he is in a precisely similar scrape with Great Britain, a power that always keeps some stout ironclads in .the China Seas. England has a treaty with China which permits tho going and coming of the subjects of each. But AustraUa and Canada have trampled as ruthlessly upon that treaty as we have upon ours. Australia will not have the Chinese upon any terms. Canada ha? imposed upon them a poll tax of 50d01., and is talking of more repressive measures. Meanwhile, Li Hung Chang, comprehending England's large commercial interests in China, and her desire to preserve them, is parleying with her as to tho immediate necessity of bringing her colonies to a proper sense of tieaty observance. This England is now trying to do, but without the slightest chance of success. The Canadians aro already up in arms in consequence of tho pressure sought to bo put upon them, and the more robust people of Australia have yet to be heard from. If Li Hung Chang could settle his difficulty with England he would then talk to us. But if ho waits till then, wo are never likely to hear from him. — • San Francisco News Letter.'