HONGKONG, 21st January, 1870.
274
Memorial of the Hongtang Community
Enclosure to 5 in Foreign Minister R. G. Macdonnell's Despatch No. 85 of 24 January 1870.
Approach of time for the revision
To the Right Honorable GEORGE WILLIAM, EARL OF CLARENDON, K.G., Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
MY LORD,
1. As the time has arrived, when according to the terms of the Treaty of Tientsin, a revision of some of its clauses can be effected, the foreign residents here, and in the Open Ports of China, feel no slight degree of anxiety as to the policy which the British Government intends to adopt. Their anxiety is considerably increased by the tone of the English press; by the speeches delivered in the House of Commons during the debate on the affairs of China last July; and still more by the tenor of some of your Lordship's recent despatches to Sir RUTHERFORD ALCOCK. Memorials have been addressed to the British Minister at Peking by the various foreign Communities in China; one was forwarded by us in October, 1867, to his Grace the DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, the then Secretary of State for the Colonies; and one has also been presented by a leading Firm to His Excellency Sir RICHARD GRAVES MACDONNELL, the Governor of Hongkong. In all of them the opinions of the Merchants resident in China, as to the policy which ought to be adopted by the British Government in its dealings with that country, are forcibly, but temperately, expressed.
Apprehensions in China as to the result.
British intercourse with China from 1842 to 1860.
Hostilities in 1857-59.
2. It is, therefore, with mingled feelings of disappointment and apprehension that we perceive that the opinions of men, who from their long acquaintance and extensive dealings with the Chinese, and from the magnitude of the interests represented by them, are entitled at least to consideration, are persistently disregarded. As Sir RUTHERFORD ALCOCK is on his way to England, and as the time fixed for the revision of the Treaty has arrived, we deem it our duty now to address your Lordship directly; and respectfully to submit to your consideration the views entertained by us upon the present political and commercial state of China; and the measures which appear to us incumbent on the British Government to adopt.
3. We need not refer your Lordship to the history of British intercourse with China previous to the termination of the war in 1842. From the Treaty which was signed at Nanking in August that year, until the ratification at Peking in October, 1860, of the Convention made more than two years before at Tientsin, it is not too much to say that we have little to record but continuous and systematic evasions by the Chinese of their Treaty obligations; periodically culminating in such gross and insulting violations of them, as to occasion constantly recurring hostilities.
4. The Mandarins persistently opposed any extension of British trade or influence within the Chinese Empire; and it was only after the lapse of considerable time and a large expenditure of blood and money that their traditional exclusiveness had at last commenced slowly, but gradually, to yield. The results were most gratifying; a steady and increasing development of trade had set in, which promised almost a boundless expansion, from which vast benefits would have accrued to both countries. These brilliant prospects were, however, marred by the untoward events of 1857 and 1859; in the latter year, war having been caused solely by an act of signal perfidy on the part of the Chinese Government.