This is a practical illustration of what the policy of the British government has been, and how it has from time to time submitted to circumstances. At first we have the theoretical principle of strict neutrality broadly asserted; then we are compelled to violate that principle in our own defence; an emergency arises in which the officers on the spot have to choose the alternative of an armed protection of British property, necessarily including a portion of the territories of the Imperial government, or the abandonment of British interests to destruction. Our own government confirms the decision of its officers--hence, first the ports themselves, and then the arbitrary thirty-mile radius are placed under foreign protection. At such a distance from the scene of operations, amid such rapid changes in the posture of affairs, and with such important interests at stake, it would be impossible for Downing Street to frame a code of instructions for officers in China which would apply to all possible contingencies, and impolitic to frame them on the pattern of the laws of the Medes and Persians. The abstract principle of non-intervention is very excellent in itself, but to adhere to it when our own material interests are directly assailed, would be pure infatuation. Expediency and self-interest must, after all, be our rule in China as elsewhere. Our government at home, and its officers abroad, have always had a dread of complications in China, but much as they have studied to steer clear of them, they have step by step been sucked in, and the end is not yet. The disturbances that have ruined so many of the richest districts in China are incompatible with the free course of trade. We have, therefore, a direct interest in the restoration of peace. The present government of China is on friendly, and even confidential, terms with us; it has shown great readiness to cement still closer our mutual relations. It is, moreover, such as it is, and with all its rottenness, the representative of order, and the rallying point for whatever remains of patriotism in the country.