as one of the most important of British oversea enterprises, and it was for its preservation and extension that the British Government then determined to assume direct control over our relations with the Chinese Empire, and that the two China wars were afterwards waged by which the wall of Chinese isolation was irrevocably breached. The Treaty of Nanking of 1842, and the Treaty of Tientsin of 1858 (which was not, however, ratified until we occupied Peking in 1860), constituted, until quite recently, the fundamental charters of Western intercourse with China. The action which we had initiated served also as a precedent for similar intervention—though with unexpectedly different results—in Japan. It is unnecessary, for my purpose, to dwell at any length upon the history of our relations with the Far East, or to investigate closely the merits of our policy, in those earlier phases. What I am concerned with is the results that were achieved, and in this country their magnitude seems seldom to receive adequate recognition.
The Present and Potential Value of the Chinese Markets.
It is now universally admitted that no country in the world possesses greater natural resources than the vast Empire of China, or offers, owing to its teeming and industrious population, a greater potential field for foreign commercial and industrial enterprise. Those resources have hardly yet begun to be developed, and we have touched but the fringe of that field. Yet, according to the official returns of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, the foreign trade of China amounted, in 1908,[1] to a value of 326,739,133 H.Tls.[2] as to im-
- ↑ I have taken the statistics of the year 1903, in preference to those of 1904, for the trade of the Far East, as the former year was not subjected to the disturbing influences of the Russo-Japanese War.
- ↑ The value of the Haikwan tael, which fluctuates with the market value of silver, averaged 2s. 7⅔d. for the year 1908.
