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payment of a calculated lump sum, would have been to admit that the Chinese were generally in the wrong. Yet this is all the mystery of the Transit pass system, which our critic would have us believe is a gross outrage on the Chinese people. I refrain from going more into detail on this subject, which has been fully handled by abler pens. All I desire to ask is whether a writer who compares the system to an arrangement which "frees foreigners from paying toll for their carriages upon English roads while it continues to be paid by British subjects" is likely to be an accurate judge of the value of the objections raised by foreigners to Chinese action in this connection. The actual analogy would be, allowing foreigners to pay all the turnpike tolls in advance at the place from whence they started, while British subjects were obliged to pay at each toll-gate as they passed---- though, even this would not quite accurately represent the arrangement, owing to the fact that on some articles Transit Dues cannot be so paid.
Sir Charles Dilke goes on to say:---
It used to be contended by some missionaries, and by all those merchants in the Treaty Ports, who see their interest in the forcible "opening" of the Chinese Empire, that besides the right of travel with passports, our subjects possess a general right of residence in the interior. This was obtained under the general articles of the French Treaty, or by the terms of the Russian Treaty, through the most-favoured-nation clause in our own. In some letters to the Times, I pointed out that which was not in those days admitted, namely, that the Russian stipulations referred only to certain special places in Mongolia, and that the general words in the French Treaty are a forgery. It is now allowed by our Foreign Office that this is so, and also that the words "or other places" in the English Treaty are "not general words," but intended only to include the cities at the Treaty Ports.
Our Foreign Office now declares that the specification of a right to reside at the Treaty Ports implies the exclusion of the privilege of permanent residence in other parts of the Chinese Empire.
Our critic's remarks upon the right of inland residence are correct as regards the action of the Foreign Office and of Her Majesty's Ministers at Peking, but are absolutely erroneous in the impression they convey that British subjects have claimed rights which the Chinese had never promised to grant. It has
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386
been asserted that the insertion of the words "or other places" in the English text was not intended to cover more than such exceptional cases as residence at Whampoa below Canton, Pagoda Anchorage below Foochow, Taku below Tientsin, &c. But Sir Charles either does not know or has judiciously suppressed the well-known fact that the Chinese Officials who signed the treaty understood the similar words in the native text to bear the ordinary signification, and that the British Minister, foreseeing the inconvenience which might accrue if British subjects settled at places beyond Consular Jurisdiction, gave the Chinese a hint, of which they were not slow to avail themselves, as to the interpretation desired by our Foreign Office. This at least puts a new face upon the "grasping" desire of the British merchant in China to have reasonable access to the great centres of population, and the fact should be fairly stated by all who deal with either side of the question. If, as may be urged, Sir Charles Dilke is ignorant of any such occurrence, it is simply a fresh proof of his rashness in writing on a subject with which he is but imperfectly acquainted. He lays considerable stress upon the readiness evinced by the Chinese to permit a wide extension of the privileges conferred upon foreigners by the treaty. The Shanghai merchants, he remarks, "travel like princes in the interior with a numerous suite, their exterritoriality or exemption from the law being at the same time preserved." I have never had the good fortune to meet a prince travelling near Shanghai, but can assert that the picture no more gives the reader an accurate idea of the Shanghai merchant sportsman than do the expressions "as happy as a king" or "as rich as Crassus" imply that the person alluded to is in precisely the condition of sovereignty or millionaire-ship. As regards exterritoriality the impression conveyed is absolutely false. That misused word in fact implies a non-exemption from law, which foreigners with ideas beyond their reasonable rights have often experienced to their cost. Exterritoriality in short may be defined, for the benefit of the home reader, as subjection to the law of one's own country in place of
( 10 )
payment of a calculated lump sum, would have been to admit that the Chinese were generally in the wrong. Yet this is all the mystery of the Transit pass system, which our critic would have us believe is a gross outrage on the Chinese people. I refrain from going more into detail on this subject, which has been fully bandled by abler pens. All I desire to ask is whether a writer who compares the system to an arrangement which "frees foreigners from paying toll for their carriages upon English roads while it continues to be paid by British subjects" is likely to be an accurate judge of the value of the objections raised by foreigners to Chinese action in this connection The actual analogy would be, allowing foreigners to pay all the turnpike tolls in advance at the place from whence they started, while British subjects were obliged to pay at each toll-gate as they passed---- though, even this would not quite accurately represent the arrangement, owing to the fact that on some articles Transit Dues cannot be so paid.
Sir Charles Dilke goes on to say:---
It used to be contended by some missionaries, and by all those merchants in the Treaty Ports, who see their interest in the forcible "opening" of the Chinese Empire, that besides the right of travel with passports, our subjects possess a general right of residence in the interior. This was oluiined under the general articles of the French Treaty, or by the terms of the Russian Treaty, through the most- favoured-nation clause in our own. In some letters to the Times, I pointed out that which was not in those days admitted, namely, that the Russian stipulations referred only to certain special places in Mongolia, aud that the general words in the French Treaty are a forgery. It is now allowed by our Foreign Offlee that this is so, and also that the words or other places" in the English Treaty are "not general words," but intended only to include the cities at the Treaty Ports.
Our Foreign Office now declaros that the specification of a right to reside at the Treaty Forts implies the exclusion of the privilege of permanent residence in other parts of the Chinese Empire.
Our critic's remarks upon the right of inland residence are correct as regards the action of the Foreign Office and of Her Majesty's Ministers at Peking, but are absolutely erroneous in the impression they convey that British subjects have claimed rights which the Chinese had never promised to grant. It has
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386
been asserted that the insertion of the words "or other places" in the English text was not intended to cover more than such exceptional cases as residence at Whampoa below Canton, Pagoda Anchorage below Foochow, Taku below Tientsin, &c. But Sir Charles either does not know or has judiciously suppressed the well-known fact that the Chinese Officials who signed the treaty understood the similar words in the native text to bear the ordinary signification, and that the British Minister, foresceing the incon venience which might accrue if British subjects settled at places beyond Consular Jurisdiction, gave the Chinese a hint, of which they were not slow to avail themselves, as to the interpretation desired by our Foreign Office. This at least puts a new face upon the "grasping" desire of the British merchant in China to have reasonable access to the great centres of population, and the fact should be fairly stated by all who deal with either side of the question. If, as may be urged, Sir Charles Dilke is ignorant of any such occurrence, it is simply a fresh proof of his rashness in writing on a subject with which he is but imperfectly acquainted. He lays considerable stress upon the readiness evinced by the Chinese to permit a wide extension of the privileges conferred upon foreigners by the treaty. The Shanghai merchants, he remarks, "travel like princes in the interior with a numerous suite, their exterritoriality or exemption from the law being at the same tine preserved." I have never had the good fortune to meet a prince travelling near Shanghai, but can assert that the picture no more gives the reader an accurate idea of the Shanghai merchant sportsman than do the expressions "as happy as a king" or "as rich as Crassus" imply that the person alluded to is in precisely the condition of sovereignty or millionaire-ship. As regards exterritoriality the impression con- veyed is absolutely false. That misused word in fact implies a non-exemption from law, which foreigners with ideas beyond their reasonable rights have often experienced to their cost. Exter- ritoriality in short may be defined, for the benefit of the home reader, as subjection to the law of one's own country in place of
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