[Inclosure in No. 159.]
Semi-official note to prince and ministers of the
Tsung-li Yamên.
Sir Thomas Wade presents his compliments to the Tsung-li Yamên.
Sir Thomas Wade has communicated to his colleagues, the representatives
of the treaty powers in Peking, the substance of the observations made
by the ministers of the Yamên upon the memorandum of the 5th October
regarding the Woosung bar, to which their attention had been invited by
Sir Thomas Wade when he was at the Yamên on the 13th November.
These observations were, in general, to the effect that the question is a
local question, and, if admitting of solution at all, must be solved by
the local government. It was one on which the Tsung-li Yamên could not
undertake to issue peremptory instructions. After much discussion the
ministers requested that they might be supplied, before going further,
with a statement of the objections taken to the arguments of the local
authorities as set forth in their memorandum of the 5th October.
It will be remembered that when, in 1874, the Chinese Government was
invited to undertake the removal of the Woosung bar, the chief objection
raised was that the bar was, in a military sense, the natural protection
of the mouth of the river. This position atleast appears to have been
abandoned. On the 25th October Admiral Cooke had an interview at Nanking
with the governor-general, Lin, in which he took occasion to urge his
excellency Lin very seriously to consider the abatement of the evil so
long complained of. The admiral’s own ship had been detained at Woosung
five days; but it was principally in the interest of commerce, native
and foreign that he now drew attention to it. The admiral had understood
that the Chinese general had been led to suppose that the bar might
prevent the ingress of foreign men of war in the event of a rupture with
a foreign power, but, were the way open, the Chinese Government, in such
a case, would easily block it by torpedoes or sunken vessels.
The governor-general, Lin, hastened to assure him that none but stupid
people who knew nothing about the matter could use such arguments as
these. He, the governor-general, well knew that the entrance could
easily be stopped by artificial means. The principal objections urged
against the dredging operations proposed, his excellency understood,
were two: first, that if the channel were deepened and widened, larger
waves would roll in, and that this would make the water rougher inside,
to the inconvenience of small craft; secondly, that there would be a
greater influx of salt water, and that this would render the river unfit
for irrigation of the fields on its banks. The governor-general added
that he could not of himself answer for the validity of these
objections. He merely mentioned them as having been made.
The same objections appear in much the same words in the report of the
taotai of Shanghai embodied in the Yamên’s memorandum of the 5th
October, and it is difficult to suppose that the official who framed
such a report can have resided at Shanghai, or can have ever had an
opportunity of observing the action of the tide in any river elsewhere.
The tide of the great river Yangtsze is often felt at more than 250
miles above its mouth. The current is far more rapid than the current of
the Woosung River, and the waves rise high as out at sea, yet the banks
are lined with small craft, no larger than those seen inside the Woosung
bar, and it has never been stated that the waters of the Yangtsze, which
frequently flood the land, were injurious to irrigation.
The water brought up by the Woosung river to Shanghai in the highest
tides before the embankments were built used frequently to rise into the
very gardens and court yards of foreign houses; but it is a more salt
water than the water of the great river, of which it is but a small
affluent; and during the thirty-odd years that the settlement has
existed no one has ever heard that irrigation has suffered from the
influx of the river water. The deepening of the channel across the bar
by a few feet will not cause the tides to rise higher than formerly.
On the other hand the deepening of the channel will be of immense benefit
to steamers, and the advantage obtained by these is not as the taotai’s
report contends, exclusively of importance to the owners of these
steamers, or even to foreign trade. The cargoes borne by the steamers
are not the property of persons or companies who run them. The larger
the steamer the greater the advantage to the trading community, for the
larger the vessel, the lower freights can it afford to charge. Every one
engaged in business, native or foreigner, is benefited by facilitation
of the ingress and egress of these vessels, which are now, when entering
the port or leaving it, detained at the mouth of the river by an
obstacle, the removal of which can inflict no injury whatever on the
Chinese Government and people; which in most other countries the
government would think it an obligation to remove, but which, in this
instance, the trading community interested is prepared to effect the
removal of without any expense whatever to the government of the
country.
In conclusion, the proposal submitted to the Chinese Government is one,
the adoption
[Page 272]
of which will
incontestably advantage both native and foreign trades. It can inflict
no possible injury upon either the government or the people of China,
and the representatives of treaty powers do hope that the
governor-general, Lin, if the decision rests with him, will be made to
see that the objections made by his subordinates are groundless.
As regards the reduction to practice of the scheme proposed by the
Shanghai Chamber of Commerce, the association of the commissioner of
customs with the committee or board of directors will in itself be an
ample guarantee for the due protection of any interest of the Chinese
Government affected by the arrangement in contemplation.
