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THE PRESENT POSITION AND PROSPECTS OF OUR 

 TRADE WITH CHINA.* 



Mr. Matheson, who has been seventeen years in China, has just 

 published a highly interesting pamphlet, entitled " The Present 

 Position and Prospects of the British Trade with China." The 

 work evinces considerable talent and research. Though Mr. M. is 

 well-disposed towards a free trade, his work, notwithstanding, 

 casts such a gloom over the whole of our extensive commerce 

 with that country, that one cannot, for the moment, help regretting 

 that the East India Company were not permitted to carry on 

 their extensive commerce under some new arrangement, that 

 might have met the views of our government and the nation 

 at large, rather than see it as exhibited by the above author. The 

 pamphlet before us is designed not only to expose the tenacious 

 character of the Chinese, but to detail the grievances that the trade 

 generally has had to encounter, and to show that since the failure of 

 Lord Napier's mission, the whole commerce and the lives of the 

 British subjects have been at the mercy of the Chinese government. As 

 the writer differs from Mr. Matheson on several subjects introduced 

 into his pamphlet, in which justice is not done to the Chinese, he 

 thinks this a favourable opportunity to offer some explanation, before 

 the government enforces any severe measure on that people. 



Mr. Matheson commences with the following paragraph: — 



" It has pleased Providence to assign to the Chinese, — a people character- 

 ized by a marvellous degree of imbecility, avarice, conceit, and obstinacy, — the 

 possession of a vjist portion of the most desirable parts of ihe earth, and a po- 

 pulation estimated as amounting to nearly a third of the whole human race. 

 It has been the policy of this extraordinary people to shroud themselves, and 

 all belonging to them, in mystery impenetrable, — to monopolize all the ad- 

 vantages of their situation. They consequently exhibit a spirit of exclusiveness 

 on a grand scale. From what this has resulted, — whether from conceit, or 

 selfishness, or from a consciousness that the ancient but feeble frame-work of 

 their political system cannot bear the rude concussions of modern times, 

 the too near inspection of inquisitive and ambitious feilow- nations, — it matters 

 not here to enquire. Such is the fact ; and the result is that China remains, 

 at this moment, ' a boundless field of indefinite curiosity and vague specula- 

 tion.'" 



The writer agrees with Mr. M. that the Chinese are a very dif- 

 ferent class of persons from Europeans, and that they are conceited 

 and imbecile, certainly no very amiable traits in their national cha- 

 racter. As " to the spirit of exclusiveness which they exhibit on a 

 grand scale," Mr. M. is probably not aware that this exclusiveness is 

 not a modern innovation on the liberties of foreigners, who come 

 from Europe, but that it has existed as a law above two thousand 

 years ; it was an enactment in consequence of the perfidy of those 

 who formed the neighbouring states. If the Chinese refused to have 

 intercourse with their immediate neighbours, can it be a matter of 



• The J'resent Position and Prospects of our Trade with China. London : Smith, 

 Elder, and Co. 



M.M.— No. 5. 2G 



