Necessity for an Armed Force to insure Resjyect. 495 



home-shippers to the Chinese market could depend upon pro- 

 tection such as the English and French can rely upon. The 

 German States, such, for instance, as the Ilanseatic Towns, 

 Prussia, Oldenburg, have indeed unsalaried Consuls here, but 

 the shrewd, material Chinese people require something more 

 than an empty intercession — they require to be convinced by 

 an unmistakeable physical ability to back these representatives. 

 Many a crying injustice, which the helpless German mer- 

 chants and ship-captains have to put up with without hope of 

 redress in the various ports of China, would not and dare not 

 occur if but a single German ship-of-war were stationed in 

 Chinese waters. What the effect is, under similar circum- 

 stances, of even one single small boat was well illustrated by 

 Mr. Alcock, formerly the English Consul at Shanghai,* who 

 with a small English brig blocked the mouth of the Yang-tse- 

 kiang, and did not suffer one single "junk" of the many 

 hundreds stationed in the river to put to sea under threat of 

 firing into them until the Chinese Government had paid at- 

 tention to his demands, and surrendered for trial by ah 

 English tribunal the murderers of an English missionary. 

 - The bare menace of closing the river sufficed to secure the 

 Consul in his rights, and he speedily saw his various demands 

 complied with. Only a month or two later a Bremen captain 

 sustained such severe losses through the wilful act of the 

 Chinese Government that he had to sell his ship, the energetic 

 protest of his Consul to tlie native authorities meeting no 



* Since the well-known minister and envoy to Japan. 



