e parties.

At a first glance, this clause would seem unnecessary--unnecessary
because the granting of any privilege not stipulated in a treaty with
China, must of course be a matter entirely subject to the pleasure of
the Chinese Government. Yet the clause has its significance. There is
in China a class of foreigners who demand privileges, concessions
and immunities, instead of asking for them--a class who look upon
the Chinese as degraded barbarians, and not entitled to charity--as
helpless, and therefore to be trodden underfoot--a tyrannical class who
say openly that the Chinese should be forced to do thus and so; that
foreigners know what is best for them, better than they do themselves,
and therefore it would be but a Christian kindness to take them by the
throat and compel them to see their real interests as the enlightened
foreigners see them. These people harass and distress the Government by
constantly dictating to it and meddling with its affairs. They beget and
keep alive a "distrust" of foreigners among the Chinese people. It
will surprise many among us to know that the Chinese are eminently
hospitable, by nature, toward strangers. It will surprise many whose
notion of Chinamen is that they are a race who formerly manifested their
interest in shipwrecked strangers by exhibiting them in iron cages in
public, in a half-starved condition, as rare and curious monsters,
to know that a few hundred years ago they welcomed adventurous Jesuit
priests, who struggled to their shores, with great cordiality, and gave
to them the fullest liberty in the dissemination of their doctrines. I
have seen at St. Peter's, in Rome, a picture of certain restive Chinamen
barbecuing some 80 Romish priests. This was an uncalled for stretch of
hospitality--if it be proposed to call it hospitality at all. But the
caging and barbecuing of strangers were disagreeable attentions which
were secured to those strangers by their predecessors. As I have said,
the Chinese were exceedingly hospitable and kind toward the first
foreigners who came among them, 200 or 300 years ago. They listened to
their preachings, they joined their Church. They saw the doctrines of
Christianity spreading far and wide over the land, yet nobody murmured
against these things. The Jesuit priests were elevated to high offices
in the Government. China's confidence in the foreigners was not
betrayed. In time, had the Jesuits been let alone, they would have
completely Chri