roduces everything
needed for the happiness of its inhabitants, and we have forced trade
upon them solely for our benefit, giving them in exchange only things
which they would do better without.

Unfortunately for China, its culture was deficient in one respect,
namely science. In art and literature, in manners and customs, it was at
least the equal of Europe; at the time of the Renaissance, Europe would
not have been in any way the superior of the Celestial Empire. There is
a museum in Peking where, side by side with good Chinese art, may be
seen the presents which Louis XIV made to the Emperor when he wished to
impress him with the splendour of _Le Roi Soleil_. Compared to the
Chinese things surrounding them, they were tawdry and barbaric. The fact
that Britain has produced Shakespeare and Milton, Locke and Hume, and
all the other men who have adorned literature and the arts, does not
make us superior to the Chinese. What makes us superior is Newton and
Robert Boyle and their scientific successors. They make us superior by
giving us greater proficiency in the art of killing. It is easier for an
Englishman to kill a Chinaman than for a Chinaman to kill an Englishman.
Therefore our civilization is superior to that of China, and Chien Lung
is absurd. When we had finished with Napoleon, we soon set to work to
demonstrate this proposition.

Our first war with China was in 1840, and was fought because the Chinese
Government endeavoured to stop the importation of opium. It ended with
the cession of Hong-Kong and the opening of five ports to British trade,
as well as (soon afterwards) to the trade of France, America and
Scandinavia. In 1856-60, the English and French jointly made war on
China, and destroyed the Summer Palace near Peking,[26] a building whose
artistic value, on account of the treasures it contained, must have been
about equal to that of Saint Mark's in Venice and much greater than that
of Rheims Cathedral. This act did much to persuade the Chinese of the
superiority of our civilization so they opened seven more ports and the
river Yangtze, paid an indemnity and granted us more territory at
Hong-Kong. In 1870, the Chinese were rash enough to murder a British
diplomat, so the remaining British diplomats demanded and obtained an
indemnity, five more ports, and a fixed tariff for opium. Next, the
French took Annam and the British took Burma, both formerly under
Chinese suzerainty. Then came the war with Japan in