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 and emporium. Luzon also was a Malay colony, but because the Catholic religion was permitted there, it fell similarly into the hands of the western foreigners. During the Ming dynasty Japan rebelled, and many provinces were overrun by them, so that even now the people of those parts cannot mention the name of the robber dwarfs without a shudder. The numerous nations of southern barbarians have never yet given the slightest cause of trouble to China: their only business is trade and the circulation of goods. Now there is no prohibition against trade with Japan or with the red-haired barbarians, and the Catholic religion of the western foreigners is spreading all over the land, Canton and Macao being actually open to them as places of residence; only against these innocent southern barbarians has a prohibition been put forth which stops all intercourse with them. This surely requires some investigation. For the people of Fuhkien and Kuang-tung are very numerous in proportion to the area they inhabit; and as the land is not sufficient to supply their wants, some five or six out of every ten look to the sea for a livelihood. Articles paltry in our estimation acquire the value of jewels when carried across the sea to these barbarians; all the dwellers on the sea-bord send off their trifling embroidery, etc., in the foreign-going ships for sale, and receive annually from the barbarians many hundred thousand of silver, all of which comes into China. Thus no small issues depend upon the cancelment of the prohibition. Before trade with these southerners was stopped the people of Fuhkien and Kuang-tung were well-to-do, and the scum and riff-raff of their populations went off to try and enrich themselves among the barbarians. Few remained at home either to starve or to steal. But since the arrest of commerce, merchandise cannot circulate and the people daily find it more difficult to support life. The artisans complain that there is no market for their manufactures; the traders sigh that they are unable to carry them to those distant ports. For the four or five thousand taels which it takes to build a foreign-going junk are tied up in vessels which are rotting in a dock or upon the now desolate sea-shore. The occupation of these junks is gone. If put