( 554 ) 



CHINA AND ITS TRADE.* 



As commerce discloses its resources, and reveals the' character of 

 its singular people, China is becoming daily an object of increasing 

 curiosity and importance to the nations of the western world. The 

 little knowledge hitherto possessed by Europeans of its real condition, 

 as regards its domestic policy and presumed hostility to foreign inter- 

 course, has been gleaned from sources manifestly either so strange as 

 to startle the credence of the most confiding, or so mystified as to be 

 unintelligible, that we may be said to know absolutely nothing con- 

 cerning it. Those who would afford us correct information, had not 

 the means of doing so, or were incapacitated through inability to se- 

 parate veracity from fiction ; while \it was the interest of the few who 

 possessed the necessary knowledge to propagate the erroneous 

 opinions already current at home. The circumstances which tended 

 to keep things in this state have ceased. It is no longer an object of 

 solicitude to any party, that incorrect notions of affairs in the East 

 should be disseminated in England. The uprooting of the leviathan 

 monopoly of the merchant-monarchs of Leadenhall-street, has over- 

 thrown the fabrics of false facts, which so long outraged the common 

 sense of the millions who paid the revenues of those regal traders. 

 Though the benefits immediately accruing from the removal of the 

 East India Company's domination may not be exactly in accordance 

 with the expectations of the public, it is already apparent that the 

 evils to which we were exposed, under the old system, cannot be 

 perpetrated after the same fashion now. The men who were most 

 deeply interested in cloaking the frauds of the late order of things, 

 are, for precisely the same reason, impelled to give the greatest pos- 

 sible publicity to any covert proceedings under the present arrange- 

 ment ; and a knowledge of the existence of abuses is now all that is 

 wanting to insure their speedy removal. The proceedings attendant 

 on the sale last month of the first free tea trade evinces the philosophy of 

 the proverb, which says, that " honest men profit from the squabbles 

 of the thievish." Notwithstanding the systematised chicanery then 

 developed, so long as affairs are not carried on in the dark the public 

 must ultimately be advantaged. 



Attention being directed to the tea question, it necessarily follows 

 that an increased desire to be more than superficially acquainted with 

 the people whom we trade with must be pretty generally felt. The 

 volumes now under notice will be found peculiarly suited to assist 

 this spirit of inquiry. The author has resided amongst the people, 

 whose character he undertakes to portray, for many years. And his 

 profession is pre-eminently adapted to enable him to view domestic 

 life in the greatest possible diversity of circumstances. Mr. Gutzlaff 

 has executed his task with great apparent fidelity, so far as a mere 

 narration of facts that came under his own observation goes, or that 



Gutzlaff's History of China, 2 vols. Smith and Elder. 



