Published unsigned as a leading article in the New-York Daily Tribune, No. 5428, September 14, 1858, p. 4; MEGA² (I/16) gives it in its appendix among the articles reworked by the editors of the Tribune: an article by Karl Marx heavily altered by the editors, so that its attribution is doubtful. Text from the original newspaper (Library of Congress, Chronicling America). Traducción al español
The news of peace and treaties formed with China—the first piece of information sent from Europe over the Atlantic Cable--was, it seems, brought to St. Petersburg, and accomplished the journey from Tien-tsin in fifty days—remarkably rapid traveling, considering the distance passed over, not much less than five thousand miles as the bird flies, and the greater part of the way through a very sparsely-inhabited and almost desert country. It appears that the first treaty made with the Chinese was one of limits, by which the River Amoor was made the boundary between the two empires. This was signed on the 28th of May, and was followed on the 13th of June by a treaty of commerce and friendship, which became the model of three similar treaties afterward concluded, the first by Mr. Reed on behalf of the United States, and the other two by the French and English Ministers respectively. The date of these three last treaties is not given, though the French and English treaties would appear to have been arranged prior to the 19th of June, and to have been signed and completed prior to the 27th, which was the date of the dispatch from the Russian Minister brought to St. Petersburg. The only further information, in addition to the telegraphic summary of the Russian dispatch sent from St. Petersburg to London, and a similar summary published in the St. Petersburg Gazette of August 21, is a telegraphic dispatch from the French Minister to the French Department of Foreign Affairs, published in the Moniteur. If the English Government have received any information from Lord Elgin, they have not thought proper to make it public. It is to be noted that the French dispatch which bears date June 19, and announces the treaties as concluded and in the process of signature, says nothing about any pecuniary indemnity to be paid to the Allies. That dispatch is in very general terms and only on one point is its information precise. The laws against Christianity are to be revoked, and the French Missionaries are to be admitted everywhere. A similar provision is no doubt contained in the British treaty. These provisions it is to be hoped may be availed of without those disgraceful rivalries and quarrels between Catholic and Protestant missionaries which have occurred in so many other parts of the world, and which have not tended to inspire the heathen with any special respect for the Christian religion.
As to the opening of China to foreign trade, we are only told that nearly the whole of it is thrown open to the commerce and industry of the west; but of the real extent of this concession it is difficult to judge before being informed what ports of the empire are excepted, and the special regulations and restrictions under which this admission should take place. Such regulations and restrictions are no less important for the interests of European intercourse with China than for the protection of the Chinese themselves. Some provision is essentially necessary to guard the interior of China against being overrun by a set of desperate European vagabonds, like those who, since the opening of the five ports, have done so much to confirm the Chinese in their hereditary idea, that all foreigners are no better than robbers and pirates. As The London Times very justly observes, it is of little consequence what the Imperial Government may stipulate, unless means shall be found to diminish and overcome the prejudices of the Chinese people against intercourse with foreigners. It is an old and well-founded observation that treaties of commerce and friendship amount to very little, except as they go to give a legal and formal sanction to that which habit and the mutual wants and inclinations of the parties to them have already established. Thus the treaty of Nankin, notwithstanding the applauses it received from both the Christian and commercial world as having opened China alike to missionary and to mercantile exertions, proved vastly more fertile in quarrels and hatreds than either in mercantile profits or converts to Christianity; and there is but too much danger that these new treaties may be attended only with a similar result.