Wherever the real demand for commodities imported into Asiatic countries does not answer the supposed demand which in most instances is calculated on such superficial data as the extent of the new market, the magnitude of its population, and the vent foreign wares used to find at some outstanding seaports commercial men, in their eagerness at securing a larger area of exchange, are too prone to account for their disappointment by the circumstance that artificial arrangements, invented by barbarian Governments, stand in their way, and may, consequently, be cleared away by main force. This very delusion has, in our epoch, converted the British merchant, for instance, into the reckless supporter of every Minister who, by piratical aggressions, promises to extort a treaty of commerce from the barbarian. Thus the artificial obstacles foreign commerce was supposed to encounter on the part of the Chinese authorities, formed, in fact, the great pretext which, in the eyes of the mercantile world, justified every outrage committed on the Celestial Empire. The valuable information contained in Lord Elgin's Blue Book will, with every unprejudiced mind, go far to dispel such dangerous delusions. The Blue Book contains a report, dated in 1852, of Mr. Mitchell, a British agent at Canton, to Sir George Bonham, from which we quote the following passage: Mr. Mitchell admits that the trade between India and China, consisting almost exclusively in an exchange of silver for opium, has been greatly developed since the treat), of 1842, but, even in regard to this trade, he adds: That the treaty Of 1842 had no influence at all in fostering the British export trade to China will be seen from the following tabular statement: Absence of wants, and predilection for hereditary models of, dress, are obstacles which civilized commerce has to encounter in all new markets. As to the thickness and strength of drills, might British and American manufacturers not adapt their wares to the peculiar requirements of the Chinese? But here, we come to the real point at issue. In 1844, Mr. Mitchell sent some samples of the native cloth of every quality to England, with the prices specified. His correspondents assured him that they could not produce it in Manchester, and much less ship it to China, at the rates quoted. Whence this inability in the most advanced factory system of the world to undersell cloth woven by hand in the most primitive looms? The combination we have already pointed to, of minute agriculture with domestic industry, solves the riddle. We quote again from Mr. Mitchell: As a complement of Mr. Mitchell's statement may be considered the following description Lord Elgin gives of the rural population he met with during his voyage up the Yang-tse-kiang: It is this same combination of husbandry with manufacturing industry, which, for a long time, withstood, and still checks, the export of British wares to East India; but there that combination was based upon a peculiar constitution of the landed property which the British, in their position as the supreme landlords of the country, had it in their power to undermine, and thus forcibly convert part of the Hindu self-sustaining communities into mere farms, producing opium, cotton, indigo, hemp, and other raw materials, in exchange, for British stuff. In China the English have not yet wielded this power, nor are they likely ever to do so.
Karl Marx in New York Daily Tribune