No. 50.
Mr. Fish to Mr. Low.
Washington, December 21, 1872.
Sir: The Department has received your telegram of the 26th October last, stating that it was officially announced that the regency would be set aside in February next.
The consequent assumption of full authority by the young Emperor will again present the question as to the expediency or necessity for such of the treaty powers as may be represented at Peking by diplomatic agents accredited to him to insist upon that audience with him to which, pursuant to public law, they should everywhere be entitled.
You are aware that there is and always has been in this country a general repugnance to dwell upon or even seriously consider questions of ceremony. When, however, such a question, as in this instance, involves that official equality of other nations with China which they have a right to claim, it becomes more or less a question, not of, form merely, but of substance, requiring grave consideration.
The entire segregation of China from the other nations of the globe until a comparatively recent period, which was the policy pursued by her rulers, was mostly occasioned and justified by the fact that, as that empire extended from north to south and from east to west through many degrees of latitude and longitude, it produced everything desirable yielded by both the temperate and the tropical zones. This, owing to the vast population of the region, led to an immense home trade in exchanging the productions of one quarter for those of another. Nothing from abroad being coveted or supposed to be needed, there was [Page 136] no occasion either for Chinese to engage in foreign commerce or for them to admit strangers even for commercial purposes. As the productions of that country, however, were not entirely unknown and were desirable in others, and especially in Europe, mercantile enterprise determined to obtain them. This was ultimately crowned with success at Canton only. Even there, however, foreigners were not allowed to mingle with the natives of the soil, generally or freely, but were restricted to their factories, so called, where purchases of Chinese and sales of such foreign goods were made as were required. The spirit of haughty exclusion, however, still prevailed in the country, and as it was antagonistic to that of commercial enterprise, it could not fail; sooner or later, to occasion collisions with foreigners, the first serious one of which resulted in the treaties of 1844. Similar collisions ensued which were settled by the existing treaties. Such collisions with Christian powers can necessarily have no other issue, for, however China in some of the arts may excel other nations, the art of war, at least, has not there kept pace with it elsewhere.
It is understood that the right now in question was urged at the last settlement, but the Chinese would yield nothing further than the privilege for the representatives of the powers to reside at Peking. That of an audience with the Emperor has never been yielded. It is the opinion of the President that on the part of the United States it should now be demanded. You will accordingly make such a demand, not separately, however, but in concert with the representatives of the other powers. Perhaps it may not in the first place be desirable to make the demand imperative. It would seem to be best to proceed by degrees and with due tenderness for the inveterate prejudices and the grotesque conceit of the Chinese courtiers, the undoubted outgrowth of the long ages through which the present system has prevailed without intercourse with the rest of the world, and, therefore, in ignorance of the advances made abroad in civilization and power.
If your well-considered and gradual attempts to compass the object should ultimately fail, the President authorizes you to inform that government that you are directed to suspend official intercourse with it, to await further instructions from here, which will be given, adapted to the occasion.
I am, &c.,