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inconsistent. It would be unfortunate if the recent interference of the Chinese Executive in the internal affairs of Korea should be hereafter adduced to throw doubt upon the international validity of any of the provisions of the Foreign Treaties on the faith of which commercial intercourse with Korea will have been entered upon and is to be conducted.
The Committee, however, accepting the independence of Korea as a recognized international fact, ventures in the first place to offer to your Lordship some observations upon the Treaty as a whole, and, in the second, to consider seriatim the several clauses of that document which may seem to call for special comment.
The Committee assumes that Her Majesty's Government has had some cogent reason, arising out of the political situation, for pushing forward to a rapid conclusion the negotiations with the Korean Authorities, but admitting that there were good grounds of policy for entering into immediate relations with the Country, the Committee respectfully submits that that object would have been as successfully, and much more conveniently attained if preliminary negotiations had been confined to drawing up a short Treaty, expressive of national amity, and providing generally for political and commercial intercourse, leaving a Tariff of Duties, and the special conditions under which foreign trade is to be carried on, to a supplementary and carefully considered Convention.
The frequent disputes which have arisen about the interpretation to be placed upon certain clauses of the Treaty of Tientsin show the importance of drafting with peculiar care agreements, affecting national interests, which have to be drawn up in a language so full of obscurities even to the most experienced Sinologue as that of China, so as to avoid all misunderstanding when the stipulations and covenants to be observed on either side come to be made effective. The Committee cannot fail to perceive that the Diplomatic Instrument, signed by Admiral WILLES at Jin Chuen in June last, has been very loosely compiled in point of form, and that many of its most important provisions have been expressed in most indefinite language, and further that imperfections, similar to those now generally recognized as existing in the Treaties with China and Japan, have been repeated and intensified in this new Treaty. Moreover, after a careful consideration of the whole scope of the document, the Committee is apprehensive that the limitations, which some of its stipulations impose upon foreign intercourse and trade, will not only be injurious to the operation of the Treaty itself, but will seriously prejudice the position hitherto consistently maintained by the Representatives of Western Nations at the Courts of Peking and Yedo, in combatting proposals to place similar restrictions upon trade with China and Japan.
There can be no doubt that, notwithstanding the vast material benefits which have resulted to the people of China during the last 20 years from the great increase in all branches (excepting in Opium) of the foreign and coasting trade of the Empire, and which have been the direct consequence of the extended foreign intercourse opened up by the Treaty of Tientsin, the Ruling Classes of China are actuated at the present time by a desire to restrict, as far as possible, the application of foreign capital and enterprise to the further development of the resources of the Country. The Committee may adduce the strenuous attempts which have recently been made to prevent the organization of various industries under foreign auspices at Shanghai in evidence of the present unsatisfactory attitude of the Chinese Authorities, and earnestly desires to draw your Lordship's attention to the great accession of strength which the reactionary party in China would derive from the stipulations of a Treaty, voluntarily entered into by the Western Powers with a Dependency of the Empire, if the opponents of progress should be able to point to conditions of exclusion in that Treaty, disadvantageous to the foreigner, which have been yielded to the Tributary State but are denied to the Country of the Suzerain.
In conclusion of these general remarks your Lordship need hardly be reminded of the difficulty which would be placed in the way of a successful conduct of the existing negotiations for a revision of the Treaty with Japan, if the arguments of Her Majesty's Minister at Yedo, in favour of the adoption of a liberal foreign policy by the Japanese Cabinet, should be met by unfavourable precedents cited from the recent agreement with Korea.
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Proceeding now to consider some of the special stipulations of the Treaty,
Article 2,--relates to the character of official relationship and communication between the two Countries, with which it is scarcely the province of this Chamber to deal, but so great has been the inconvenience sustained in former years by the Merchants in China under the provisions of the Treaty of Nanking, which seriously hindered free communication between foreign Consular Officials and the Provincial Authorities, that the Committee feels it necessary to advert to the paragraph in the first clause of this article which stipulates that "Officials shall have relations with the corresponding local authorities of equal rank upon a basis of mutual equality." This stipulation is a very vague one according to the English text, and what it may imply in the Chinese text the Committee is unable to say. It may be read in an exclusive sense, and be taken to mean that officials of the one Country may only communicate with Officials of the same rank in the other. The war with China, commenced in 1856, would probably have been averted if Consul PARKES could have insisted upon personal communication with Governor General YEH, and the Committee suggests the expediency of providing that the Commissioned Officers of both Countries, whether Civil, Naval, or Military, shall be entitled to hold official intercommunication on terms of social equality while observing the ordinary rules of precedence relating to Official rank.
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Article 3,-in the clause which provides that a British vessel shall with her seized and confiscated if found engaged in clandestine trade, is remarkable for repeating a grave shortcoming in the Tientsin Treaty which has been the occasion of a lasting controversy. Under this article a vessel, alleged to be engaged in trading to a port not opened by the Treaty, may be confiscated by the Korean Authorities of their own motion, and with or without trial, subject to no investigation by, or appeal to, British Officials.
The Committee desires to enter the strongest protest against the confirmation of this clause, on two grounds,
1st. That the absence of any recognized practice or system of jurisprudence in Korea renders it impossible to repose confidence in the decisions of Korean Officials who would be judges in their own cause without appeal, and
2nd. Because the power of confiscation is granted without the safeguard of any provision as to the nature of the proceedings which shall be taken to prove that the vessel shall have been really guilty of the offence with which it may be charged. The Treaty between Japan and Korea provides that in the event of a Japanese vessel being found engaged in smuggling goods "into any non-open port in Korea, it shall be seized by the Korean local Authorities, and delivered over to the agent of the Japanese Government residing at the nearest port. Such goods to be confiscated by him, and to be handed over to the Korean Authorities.
In the clause relating to the wreckage of British Vessels on the Coast of Korea, the local Authorities should be made responsible not only for taking the necessary measures for rendering assistance to the Crew, and salving the Vessel and cargo, but also for inflicting condign punishment upon all plunderers or wreckers.
Article 5,-mainly relates to fiscal obligations and the Committee cannot conceal its surprise and regret that after the experience which has been gained of the unsatisfactory working of the Tientsin Treaty, owing to the looseness of certain of its stipulations which provide for and limit the Tariff of Duties, Her Majesty's Representative should have given his assent to clauses which cannot fail in operation to revive, in the case of Korea, difficulties and controversies similar to those which have arisen and still exist in carrying on trade with China.
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