CHINA 



193 



hai. This was dime in October, mi<l th-n 

 opium was entered among tin- legitimate articles 

 of iini>ort, itinl tin- arrangement continued tlmt 

 tin- government should employ it foreign otlicial in 

 the collection of all maritime duties. It might seem 

 that these treaties secured cver\ tliiny which foreign 

 nations could require, ami that the humiliiition 

 of the ChincM- government was complete. But 

 they were nearly w reeked by one concluding stipu- 

 laiion in all of them hut that of the I'nited 

 States, that the rat ilieat ions of them should l>e 

 exchanged "/ 1'rkimj within a year. The em- 

 peror and his advisei-s, when the pressure of the 

 foive at T'ien tsin was removed, could not bear 

 the thought of the embassies entering the sacrod 

 capital, and foolishly cast alnmt to escape from the 

 cuiidit ion. The forts at Ta-ku, guarding the en- 

 trance to the Pei-ho, and the approach toT'ien t-in 

 and thence to Peking, were re i milt and strongly 

 fortified. When the English, French, and Ameri- 

 can ministers returned to Shang-hai with the 

 ratified treaties in 1859, the Chinese commissioners 

 who had signed them at T'ien-tsin were waiting for 

 them, and urged that the ratifications should be 

 exchanged there. The French and English minis- 

 ters then insisted on proceeding to Peking as the 

 place nominated for the exchange. But when they 

 arrived at the mouth of the river, with the gun- 

 boats under their command, they were unable to 

 force the defences. A severe engagement ensued, 

 and the allied forces sustained a repulse with heavy 

 loss. It was the one victory gained by the Chinese. 

 The British and French governments took imme- 

 diate action. A third expedition under the same 

 plenipotentiaries as before, with a force of nearly 

 20,000 men, was at the same place in little more 

 than a year. The forts were taken on August 21, 

 and on the 25th the plenipotentiaries were again 

 established in T'ien-tsin. We can only refer to 

 their march in September on Peking, with all its 

 exciting details. The emperor ( Hsien-fung) fled to 

 Jeh-ho in the north of Chih-li, the imperial sum- 

 mer-retreat ; and his brother, Prince Kung, whose 

 name is well known, came to the front in the 

 management of affairs. On the 13th October he 

 surrendered the north-east gate of the city ; and 

 on the 24th the treaties were exchanged, and an 

 additional convention signed, by which of course an 

 additional indemnity was exacted from the Chinese, 

 and an arrangement made about the emigration of 

 coolies, which had become a crying scandal, while 

 a small piece of the continent of the empire, lying 

 opposite to Hong-kong, was ceded to that colony. 

 So it was that the attempt of China to keep itself 

 aloof from the rest of the world came to an end, 

 ami a new era in the history of the empire was 

 initiated. 



Hsien-fung died at Jeh-ho in August 1861, 

 leaving the empire to his young son only six years 

 old. A cabal at Jeh-ho tried to keep the I toy in 

 their possession, but his uncle, Prince Kung, 

 succeeded in getting him to Peking, and along 

 with the young emperor's mother and the empn^- 

 dowager, by whom Hsien-fung^ had had no child, 

 loyally and successfully administered a regency in 

 accordance with the new conditions of the govern- 

 ment. The style of the reign was T'ung-chi, or 

 ' Government m Union ; ' and on February 23, 

 1873, the emperor announced publicly, and speci- 

 ally to the foreign ministers, that he had taken the 

 government into his own hands. This brought up 

 the question of an audience, but, after a good deal 

 of protocol ling and negotiation, it was finally 

 settled on June 29 by the emperor receiving all 

 the ministers then in Peking without the ceremony 

 of prostration. His reign did not last long, for he 

 died in January 1875. As he left no son, and had 

 designated no successor, the members of the im- 



117 



perial house, according to the rule* in Much a nun 

 appointed as his successor Tsai-t'ien, the son of 

 I 'mice Shun, a younger brother of Prince Kung. 

 The new sovereign was a child of four yean old, 

 and began to reign under the style of Kwang Hii, 

 or 'The Illustrious Succession. He assumed the 

 government in March 1887. 



Soon after the ratification of the treaties of Tien- 

 t-in, the promised ports on the Great Chiang, 

 except Nan-king, were opened namely, Han-k'au 

 (in lift pel), Chiu-chiang (Kiu-kiang, in Chiang- 

 IIH i, and Chin-chiang (Kin-kiang, in Chiang-su). 

 I-chang (in Hu-pei), Wu-hu (in An-hui), Wau-chau 

 (in Cheh-chiang), and I'ih-hai (Pak-hoi, in Kwang- 

 tuh'g) were opened by the Chefoo convention 

 (1876), which also made concessions about the 

 opium traffic. The treaty of Shirnonoseki (1895), 

 after the war with Japan, opened four additional 

 ports Chung-king, Hang-chow, Soo-chow, and 

 Sha-tsze. The foreign deot of China, contracted 

 almost wholly in connection with the Japanese war 

 ( 1894-95), was in 1898 estimated at 40,000,000. 



According to the customs returns for the year 

 1893, the vessels entered and cleared at the various 

 treaty ports were 37,902 (of 29,318,811 tons) of 

 which 19,365 (of 19,203,978 tons) were British. 

 The total value of the imports from abroad in- 

 creased from 110,885,000 teals in 1889 to over 

 157,360,000 in 1893, while the value of the exports 

 rose from 97,000,000 teals in 1889 to 116,635,000 in 

 1893. In the latter year the im ports direct from 

 Britain were 28,156,000 teals, the exports thither 

 11,668,000 teals. Most of the foreign trade is set 

 down as with Hong-kong, which is a distributing 

 centre for trade to and from Britain, Germany, 

 France, America, India, &c. After Hong-kong, 

 the order in which foreign countries participate 

 in Chinese trade is Britain, India, the United 

 States, Japan, and Russia. The principal im- 

 ports are opium (31,700,000 teals), cotton goods 

 (45,100,000), metals (7,200,000), oil and kerosene, 

 seaweed and fishery products, woollens, coal, and 

 raw cotton. The chief exports are silk (38,115,000 

 teals), tea (30,550,000), straw braid (2,430,000), 

 sugar, clothing, paper, and chinaware. By the 

 British returns, the exports from Britain to China, 

 which in 1889 had a value of 7,220,600, were 

 in 1893 only 6,435,000 ; the imports from China 

 to Britain, which in 1889 were 7,260,000, were 

 in 1893 only 4,786,850. The disparity between 

 them and the Chinese reckoning is owing to the 

 fall in the value of the silver teal (5s. 8Jd. in 1882 ; 

 4s. in 1893). 



China has in the past been mainly a self-con- 

 tained nation, but of late the Chinese have shown 

 an increasing tendency to seek a livelihood abroad, 

 especially in California, British Columbia, the 

 Straits Settlements and Eastern Archipelago, and 

 Australia. More than half the population of 

 Singapore is Chinese; and in 1880 there were 

 200,000 Chinese in Java. In the Australian colo- 

 nies there have never been more than 60,000. 

 From 1855 to 1867 the immigration of Chinese 

 into the United States varied from 3000 to 7000 ; 

 from 1868 to 1881 it was usually between 10,000 

 and 20,000; in 1882 it was 33,614. But the im- 

 position of prohibitory taxes on Chinese immigrants 

 reduced this to 17 in 1886. And in 1888 the immi- 

 gration of Chinese workmen was absolutely for- 

 bidden for twenty-one years. British Columbia 

 and some of the Australian colonies have also 

 sought to restrict Chinese immigration by im- 

 posing a heavy poll-tax on immigrant Chinese. 



The empire has to some small extent taken 

 advantage of Western civilisation telegraphs have 

 been established, a small beginning made with 

 railways, and trustworthy foreigners employed 

 in training the army, in the arsenals, and in the 



