Banquet to His Excellency Anson Burlingame; And His Associates of the Chinese Embassy by the Citizens of New York, on Tuesday, June 23, 1868 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1868. Excerpt: ... civilization. She tells you she is ready to take back her own inventions, with all their developments. She tells you that she is willing to trade with you, to buy of you, to sell to you, to help you strike off the shackles from trade. (Applause.) She invites your merchants, she invites your missionaries. She tells the latter to plant the shining cross on every hill and in every valley. (Applause.) For she is hospitable to fair argument. I say she tells you she is willing to strike off the shackles of trade. She offers you almost free trade to-day. (Cheers.) Holding the great staples of the earth--tea and silk--she charges you scarcely any tariff on the exports you send out in exchange for them. (Applause.) She is willing to meet the inferior questions which are now arising as to transit-dues, and if you only have patience with her, and right reason on your side, she will settle these to your satisfaction. But the country is open; you may travel and trade where you like. What complaint, then, have you to make of her? Show her fair play. Give her that, and you will bless the toiling millions of the world. (Applause.) Their trade, carried on in foreign vessels, which has in my own day in China, risen from $82,000,000 to $300,000,000, is but a tithe of the enormous trade that will take place with China when she gets into full fellowship with the rest of the world. (Applause.) Let her alone; let her have her independence; let her develop herself in her own time, and in her own way. She has no hostility to you. Let her do this, and she will initiate a movement which will be felt in every workshop of the civilized world. She says now: "Send us your wheat, your lumber, your coal, your silver, your goods from everywhere--we will take as many of them as we can. We ...