THE COMING WAR WITH CHINA

Colonist, Volume XVII, Issue 1980, 16 October 1875, Page 4

THE COMING WAR WITH CHINA

(From t7ie Melbourne Argus.) Fob, many months past, British residents in China have been subjected to outrages which the authorities have been apparently very reluctant to punish. la June last, four students from the English Legation at Pekin were attacked by a mob at a place about 40 miles west of that city ; their astronomical instruments were ruined, their provisions destroyed, and Baron yon Mollendorff, of the German Legation, who accompanied them, narrowly escaped with his life. Dr. Bushel has also been assaulted with stones, and the Cossacks of the Russian Legation have been seriously maltreated. An Englishman named Blacklock has been murdered at Pagoda Island, Foo-Chow, one of the five ports in which British merchants are privileged to reside, and other acts of violence are reported elsewhere. But the most substantial grievance of which Mr Wade has to complain, and for whicbjhe has demanded reparation from the Government at Peking, is the murder of Mr Margery, the interpreter attached to Colonel Browne's expedition, on its passage through the province of Tun-nan. According to the latest Chinese papers, this crime was regarded as a highly meritorious proceeding in the district in which it occurred; and the officials there are reported to have been raising soldiers en masse, and to have signified their determination to prevent any inquiry. When the authorities at Peking were appealed to by the British Envoj, they coolly replied that a commissioner, JLi-Han-Chang. had been appointed to investigate the -murder, and that "perhaps he would be despatched in the course of two or three months." As Mr Wade perceived that he was being trifled with, he sent an ultimatum to the Peking Government. In this it is reported that he demanded ten lakhs of dollars, and also the heads of the Tun-nan officials, who are implicated in the murder. It is further understood that the opening of the port of Kiong-Tchou, on the island of Hainan, and the exploration of the western trade route will be insisted upon, while the Chinese Government will be urged to establish legations and consulates in Europe, bo as to avoid the necessity of referring every subject in dispute to Peking. The North QMna Herald, of a late date, asserts that great preparations were being naade by the Chinese for a foreign war. Armstrong guns and torpedos were being procured from Europe, and no effort will be spared to prevent British soldiers from entering Tun-nan. At present we have 6176 troops in Burmah, which is coterminous with Tun-nan, but the Chinese authorities are more likely to be impressed by a naval demonstration near the capital than by a military one at a distance, and as four war steamers are awaiting further orders in the harbor of Chee Foo, at the entrance of the j Gulf of Pe-che-lee, from whence Peking is | readily accessible, our blue jackets may once more have an opportunity of distinguishing themselves in that quarter, unless Mr Wade's ultimatum is complied with. As to the efficacy of resistance that may be offered, the North China Herald writes as follows : — " The works which the Chinese will erect will hardly be sufficient to harass, far less stop, such a man-of-war as the Audacious ; they will have to build new officers and create new soldiers before they could turn to good purpose even a first-class fortress, uf course they do not realise their inferiority, they attribute their former disasters entirely to the superiority of foreign, arms, and they

think they are supplying this defect. They quite fail to realise how inferior are their new weapona, and how trifling their defences, compared with such cannon and such fortresses ai are how being constructed in Europe; and when they do again come into collision foreigners, their collapse will be the greater from the fancied greatness of their preparations."