" Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And,
while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Sends up a steamy column, and the cups That Meer fact not inebriate wait on each,— So let us welcome peaceful evening in." Cow.PER's T.wse.
THE urn, we regret to say it, no longer sends up its steamy column ; we are no longer refreshed by the view of its classic form, nor by the substantial promise of " drink and fill again" that it held cut. The elegant accompaniment of the poet's tea-table, and of the tea-table of our youth, has been releent ad to the ante-room. Still, however, the draught is good, and therefore would we most strenuously urge the• propriety of making it cheap as well as good. On the absurdity 1 of keeping the trade with China shut to all but the East India Conn patty, there is and there can be but one opinion. Nothing in the !re- hire of a serious argument has ever been attempted to justify it. II. has indeed been alleged that only a chartered cYlnpany can traffic wit 11 the Chinese ; but how then do the Americans, who have no such com- panies, traffic with them ? The truth is, that the Chinese Govern- ment know nothing of England but through the medium of the East India Company ; and the Company they only know as masters of an immense territory, it considerable pertion of which, since the war in the Nepaul, borders on the Celestial Empire. They are jealous of encroachments, and not unreasonably ; tiny are afraid of it s power ; and hence their extreme caution, then- multiplied and teasing regula- tions, their pettish and capricious conduct. So far from its being dif- ficult for individual vessels to abet what the Company effect, indi•vi dual vessels would find the trade a task of comparative case, for many reasons, but chiefly because they would excite no feeling of distrust io. the Chinese Government.
The Company prosecute the trade with China in the most expensive manner, and this without a shadow of reason. Were it necessary—or if necessary, were it possible, which it obviously is not—that every vessel trading to Canton should exhibit such an appearance of power as might command the respect of the Viceroy and his subordinates, still that would be no reason for excluding English vessels of a different description from the indirect as well _as direct trade with China. The difficulties of managing the trade at Canton ought to operate as an in- ducement, not as a drawback, to the encouragement of those who arc prepared to push it elsewhere. Is it forgotten that there is hardly an island in the Eastern Archipelago with which the Chinese themselves do not trade ? How many cntrepUts might be established were the traffic with China once thrown open ! At present there is no tea—the grand article of English importation—carried to the ports frequented by the Turks, because no English vessel dare purchase it, because the grand market for the article is hermetically sealed at every point but the island of Macao, and through every channel but that of the Hong- merchants. Let it once be lawful for English merchants to purchase tea wherever tea is to bd sold, and it will soon be a matter of the ut- most facility to purchase intermediately any quantity that our demands may require. It is ridiculous, however, to suppose that anything in the size or display of the vessels of the Company give them an ad- vantage in the Chinese market, which the smallest and least defended bark might not claim and be allowed. The Chinese empire is, take it all in all, the most assailable in the wide world. With a popula- tion of some hundred and eighty or two hundred millions, and a go- vernment of some two thousand years standing, and a literature by no • means contemptible, and a pro Less in the arts of a highly respectable kind, it combines more of moral and political weakness than any state under heaven. But still, making* every allowance for Chinese imbe- cility, it is impossible to suppose that it could be awed to one conduct or encouraged to another by the size or equipments of a merchant vessel. Let, however, the worst come to the worst, what would ensue ? a war with China?
" Oh, cucumber and cabbage, cabbage and cucumber !"
Why, ten thousand men would march from the one end of the Celestial Empire to the other, and ten frigates would annihilate all the sea-ports it possesses, in six months.
On the importance of cheap lea in a moral point of view, we think too little stress has been hitherto laid. It is the peculiarity of that deli cafe beverage that " it cheers but not i nebriates"—lhat it affords, not to the sedentary and the studious only, but to all classes, a nervous stimulus without which, unless in the case of a few happily-born indi- viduals, it seems almost impossil le for dull and laggard humanity to travel on its way rejoicing; and it does so without any of the incon- veniences which accompany 01 her stimuli. Indeed, lea-drinkers are rarely if ever dram-drinkers. We need not say what dram-drinkers are. This consideration ought to weigh a little with Government in their conclusions respecting this question. We are persuaded that the revenue—to speak to the "business and bosoms" of Ministers—would not suffin% During the last thirty years, the consumption of tea has increased from six millions to about thirty millions of pounds ; yet what is the latter quantity to the demands of the community ?—about one pound and a half per head; that is, about one quarter of an ounce a day for every family of four persons ! if tea were two shillings instead of six or seven shillings, can it be doubted that the consumption of an article which all relish, and in which all would indulge could they compass it, would be intionelit,.c1 feurfekl A:al is it to be imagined thud there is no produce of time Engiish manufacturer that would be found to suit the taste of the Chinese mercLant were the demand for the goods of the latter so greatly increased ? The Chinese have hitherto despised our traffic, not because they are indifferent to commerce, but because it has been so small. And indeed they well might. The return to the Chinese tea-grower even at present is not at the utmost more than half a million sterling: we doubt if it be so much.
The increase of our commerce with China, is the only possible way of giving China an interest in it ; and the only possible way of increasing our commerce with China, is to allow every one who has the means and the inclination to prosecute it freely.
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