| Show AMERICANS I I CHINA The Number that Would be Immediately Im-mediately Affected BY A POLICY OF RETALIATION On the Part of the Celestial Empire They Would be Less Than Two Thousand Commercial Interests Special toTnB HERALD Esaminer Dtspatoh1 NEW YORK July 8The threat of retaliation retali-ation made by Minister Tsui Chinas representative repre-sentative in Washington in an interview published yesterday created a sensation Merchants who deal with China and representatives repre-sentatives of China trading companies arei not disposed to discuss the matter for publication pub-lication however as they claimed It was not a proper thing to do in view bt their re lations with both countries Privately they talked freely and the president one of the companies a man who spent several years in China explained the situation this wayThere There arc not near as many Americans in China now as there were some years ago Minister Danby in one of his reports last year gave statistics and they showed that there were only lOiJ Americans in the entire empire of whom 123 j were adult females 215 minor females and 20 minor boys leaving a balance Jf SiS men Of this total there were in Shanglat 400 Mingpea 44 Fooehow 51 Amoy 41 Canton 75 Chinkiang 75 Han Kosw 77 Chcfoo 87 Fieutsin including Pekin IbO and New Chawang 12 Of a total of 50V there were missionaries 28 in the customs service 23 in the diplomatic and consular service 0 merchants 23 mechanics KJ miners and sailors b3 These occupations are not complete as only a number the sailors and diplomatic employees in Shanghai are given It will be seen that the American eagle will not be afforded much of an opportunity op-portunity to scream if Americans are ordered out of China Nor is there much American capital invested there In IbbtJ there was in Shanghai alone over ono thousand Americans One American commanded the Chinese army another American commanded the Chinese navy Then there were eight or ten big American Ameri-can trading houses In Shanghai and now there are only three or four The change is due to our governments bungling mode of handling treaties with China The treaty arrangement made by President Cleveland was a good one but the Senate could not rise above partisan politics and bungled the treaty to prevent Cleveland taking credit for it I dont attribute the decrease of our business to the inference of Concress Now the theory that the ac tion of Congress had anything to do with the apparent decrease of exports cannot be ascertained to have any foundation whatever what-ever The average Chinaman is not a sentimental sen-timental sort of person and will buy whatever what-ever is cheapest that will answer his purposes pur-poses If he knows anything about the action ac-tion of Congress which is doubtful ha > would not be likely to care aboutit since his own government has assented to a Chinese Chi-nese exclusion treaty A M Townsend manager of the Hong KongandSbanghai Banking company No 50 Wall street said There are many Americans drawing hani otne salaries iu the Chinese custom service and there are several hundred American missionaries scattered through the interior of that country They would probably bo among the earliest departures if Americans were ordered to leave We get tea silks and some other articles from China and payout pay-out more money than our exports bring back and consequently we would lose less in money than she would if all intercourse was prohibited between the two nations There is not much American money invested in-vested in China except in merchandise An American company did own a large steamboat steam-boat line running mainly up the Yangtsze river but sold it to the Chinese government govern-ment I dont think there will be any acts of retaliation The Chinese are a conservative conserv-ative diplomatic people and not disposed to seek trouble They talk a good deal but act cautiously |
