14 Through the Yang-tse Gorges 



must admit the fact that past progress has been due to 

 pressure, and that this pressure must be kept up. Our 

 Chambers of Commerce should enlighten and rouse the 

 public, and induce our Government to imitate the Russians 

 in establishing a special ministry for East-Asian affairs, 

 whose duty it should be to watch British interests in the 

 Far East, from Siam to China and Japan, and take care that 

 our rights and privileges are encroached upon neither by the 

 natives themselves, nor by our European rivals in these 

 countries. Our Foreign Office, too much engaged in other 

 quarters, has, of late years, notoriously failed to pay due 

 attention to the Far East; hence the crying need of a 

 special " Far East " department. 



The Chinese officials can be urged, and should be made, 

 loyally to carry out the obligations to promote trade, which 

 are implied in our various treaties, and the Central Govern- 

 ment should be assured of our moral and material support 

 in resisting the preferential demands of our European 

 rivals ; * but to do this requires an energy that will persevere 

 in the face of the disheartening effects of perpetual procras- 

 tination, an art in which the Chinese are admittedly Past 

 Masters — without impatience and without rest — "ohne Hast, 

 ohne Rast." 



* It does not appear to be generally known that France and Russia 

 hAve forced the Chinese Government to admit goods from their re- 

 spective frontiers upon payment of two-thirds only of the treaty tariff, 

 thus handicapping British goods, ocean borne, which have to pay thq 

 full duty. 



