So

now raises a crop not much less than that of Yunnan. great is the quantity of native opium now raised throughout China that, despite some inferiority in quality, there is a prospect of Indian opium being practically driven out of the Chinese market as a practical revenge for the loss inflicted on China by the successful competition of Indian tea. But at least China is now clearly debarred from again posing as an injured party in the matter of the opium traffic.

For some years past, indeed as the natural consequence of the Chinese reappearance in Kashgaria, there has been a necessity for direct relations between India and China. This necessity was greatly increased by the British invasion of Burmah in 1885 and the annexation of that state in the following year. In this direction, as in Tonquin, China possessed shadowy tributary rights. They were good or they were bad just as much as China had the power to enforce them. They were invested with a value they did not possess by the exceptional good will and complaisance of the British Government. In order to exactly understand the terms of the first Burmah Convention, in 1886, it is necessary to describe the minor negotiations that led up to it.

The Chefoo Convention of 1876, closing the Yunnan incident, contained in a separate article a promise from the Chinese Government to allow an English mission to pass through Tibet. Years passed without any attempt to give effect to this stipulation; but at last, in 1884, Mr. Colman Macaulay, a member of the Indian Civil Service, obtained the assent of his Government to his making a request of the Chinese Government for the promised passports to visit Lhasa. He went to Pekin, and he came to London to interest the Marquis Tseng in his journey. He obtained the necessary permission and the promised passport from the Tsungli Yamen, and there is no doubt that if he had set off for Tibet with a small party he would have been honourably At least received and passed safely through Tibet to India. there is no doubt that the Chinese officials had made a very special effort to achieve this object. On the other hand, there is no doubt that such a journey, which might well have

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provided only a slight glimpse of Lhasa, would have been of little special importance. It might have been an interesting individual experience; it could not have been the international landmark it was to form in Mr. Macaulay's own mind.

This modest character for his long-cherished project did not suit Mr. Macaulay, and, unmindful of the adage that there may be a slip betwixt the cup and the lip, he not merely delayed the execution of his visit, but he made ostentatious preparations and he engaged many persons of scientific attainments to accompany him with the view of examining the mineral resources of Tibet. He had also altered his proposed journey through China into Tibet to one from India to Tibet. The Chinese themselves did not relish, and had never contemplated, such a mission; but their dissatisfaction was slight in comparison with the storm the rumours of this mission raised in Tibet itself. No doubt was possible that the Tibetans were prepared and resolved to oppose its admission by force of arms. The Chinese Government was thus brought face to face with a position in which it must either employ its military power to coerce the Tibetans, or tamely acquiesce in their refusal to pay respect to the passports of the Tsungli Yamen, and thus provoke a serious complication with this country. Such was the position of the Tibetan question when Burmah was annexed in January, 1886, and negotiations followed with China for the adjustment of her claims and the new frontier. Negotiations were carried on, first by Lord Salisbury and afterwards by Lord Rosebery, with the Chinese minister in London, and the draft of more than one convention was prepared. Among such contemplated arrangements were the despatch of a mission from Burmah to China, and of a return mission from China to place the Empires on an equality; the appointment of the head priest of Mandalay as the person by and through whom the mission should be sent, thus making it a purely native matter outside any participation by the British Government; and a third proposition was to cede territory in the Shan states and trade rights on the Irrawaddy as an equivalent for the surrender of the claim to tribute.

It is probable that one of these three arrangements would have been carried out, but that on certain points being referred to Pekin, the knowledge came to the ears of certain British officials that if the Tibetan mission were withdrawn the Chinese would be content with the formal admission of their claim to receive the tribute mission from Burmah without any specification as to how it was to be practically carried out. As both Governments wanted to bring about a speedy settlement of the question, the Chinese with the view of allaying the rising agitation in Tibet and getting rid of a troublesome question, and the English not less anxious to have the claims of China in Burmah defined in diplomatic language, the Convention which bears Mr. O'Conor's name was drawn up and signed with remarkable despatch. For the abandonment of the Macaulay Mission, and the mere recognition of their shadowy claim to tribute, the Chinese were quite willing to abandon the chance of more tangible possessions, such as a port on the Irrawaddy, which at one moment seemed within their reach. Diplomacy has since said a good deal more on this subject. The claim to any tribute at all has been waived, and in return China was given a very important and valuable slice of territory in the Shan states. The ceded territory was subsequently reduced, because China broke faith with England in the trans-Mekong territory of Kianghung by ceding part of it to France, and within the present year an Anglo-Chinese Delimitation Commission has been engaged in the task of defining with scrupulous exactitude the boundary of Burmah and Yunnan. Here, at least, the Chinese are showing an admirable ingenuity in securing the full letter of their rights and every yard to which they could lay claim, while Great Britain alone among the nations is ceding to the decrepit Pekin rulers the respect and the forbearance they might claim if they were strong, steadfast, and straightforward.

In the meanwhile the young Emperor Kwangsu, "the cross and sleepy child," placed on the throne at the midnight conclave in 1875, was growing up. The date on which he was to take possession of his own was looming in the distance, and, as a preliminary to his assumption of power,

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search had to be made for a suitable wife. In February, 1887-the month of the Chinese New Year-it was announced that his proposed marriage was postponed for two years in consequence of his tender age and delicate health. The postponement also had the considerable advantage of insuring for the Regent a further lease of power. About New Year's Day, 1889, when Kwangsu was well advanced in his eighteenth year, he was married to Yeh-ho-na-la, daughter of a Manchu general named Knei Hsiang. This lady had been carefully selected for the great honour of Empress of China out of many hundred candidates, and so far she has escaped the fate of the unfortunate Ahluta. The marriage was celebrated with the usual amount of state, and more than a million sterling was expended on the attendant ceremonies. At the same time the Empress Dowager made her resignation of power public in a farewell edict; but although she passed into a retreat, she still retained the substance of power, and ruled her adopted son, and, indeed, the whole of his court, with a rod of iron. If she had ruled them for her country's good, silence might have been extended to her machinations; but for the injuries that have befallen China her masterfulness has been largely responsible and much to blame.

The marriage and assumption of governing power by the Emperor Kwangsu brought to the front the very important question of the right of audience with the Chinese monarch by the foreign ministers resident at Pekin. This privilege had been conceded by China at the time of the Tientsin massacre, as part of the reparation made for that outrage, and on one occasion it had been put in force during the brief reign of Tungche. During the Regency it necessarily remained in abeyance; but the time had again arrived for putting it in effect, and after long discussions as to the place of audience and the forms to be observed, Kwangsu issued, in December, 1890, an Edict appointing a day soon after the commencement of the Chinese New Year for the audience, and also arranging that it should be repeated annually about the same date. In March, 1891, Kwangsu gave his first reception to the foreign representatives; but, after the interview

was over, some dissatisfaction and legitimate criticism were aroused by the fact that the ceremony had been held in the Tse Kung Ko, or Hall of Tributary Nations. Since then some improvement has been effected in the arrangements, as this was one of the rare occasions on which foreigners were brought into direct contact with a Chinese ruler the audience in Tungche's reign and Lord Macartney's interview with Keen Lung being the two most notable exceptions. The following description of the Emperor's personal appearance by one present at the audience is deserving of quotation :

"Whatever the impression 'the Barbarians' made on him, the idea which they carried away of the Emperor Kwangsu was pleasing and almost pathetic. His air is one of exceeding intelligence and gentleness, somewhat frightened and melancholy-looking. His face is pale, and though it is distinguished by refinement and quiet dignity, it has none of the force of his martial ancestors, nothing commanding or imperial, but is altogether mild, delicate, sad, and kind. He is essentially Manchu in features, his skin is strangely pallid in hue, which is no doubt accounted for by the confinement of his life inside these forbidding walls and the absence of the ordinary pleasures and pursuits of youth, with the constant discharge of onerous, complicated, and difficult duties of state, which it must be remembered are, according to Imperial Chinese etiquette, mostly transacted between the hours of two and six in the morning. His face is ovalshaped, with a very long narrow chin and a sensitive mouth with thin nervous lips; his nose is well shaped and straight, his eyebrows regular and very arched, while the eyes are unusually large and sorrowful in expression. The forehead is well shaped and broad, and the head is large beyond the average."

Owing to the dissatisfaction felt at the place of audience which seemed to put the Treaty Powers on the same footing as tributary states, the foreign Ministers set themselves the task of exacting from the Tsungli Yamen the selection of a more suitable place in the Imperial city for the annual ceremony. The matter was no doubt referred to the Emperor