THE FRIEND OF CHINA,
AND
NOTIFICATION.
DONGBONG GAZETTE
PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY MORNING.
VICTORIA, THURSDAY NOVIMBER 23RD, 1843.
THE publication of the Hongkong Ga- zette under the authority of Government, will be discontinued from this date: but all public orders and notifications appearing
in
The Friend of China and Hongkong Gazette," with the signatures of duly au- thorized Functionaries of the Government are still to be considered as official.
By order,
J ROBT: MORRISON, Acting Secretary and Treasurer.
Hongkong, March, 23rd: 1842.
An important Official Communication. To His Excellency
SIR HENRY POTTINGER, BART.
G. C, B.
H. B. M.'s Plenipotentiary.
Price $1 monthly, Or $12 yearly.
- TRADE WITH Russia. -Russia has been operating pretty largely upon the Manchester yarn market in the course of the week. Her object in the present pur- chases is the supply of the demand for cotton cloths in ber barter trade with China. There is no power in Eu- rope so wide awake to her own commercial interests as Russia. The trade between Russia and China is one,
Taoukwang 23rd year, 9th month, 16th day. the terms of which, as with all other European nations,
(7th November 1843.)
True translation,
Signed,
R. THOM.
Interpreter:
The correction in the Tariff will be as follows;
2
T. D.
7. m.
10ths7,6. -2.8.
3,5x 8
GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATIONS. 22Ginseng 1st quality per100 catties38,0,
WITH reference to the Notification of Do, 2nd quality, or refuse per do. the 13th Instant regarding the transmis- sion of the Mails by H. M'sSteamer SPITE- Fuit is hereby notified that that Vessel will be despatched at day break on the 1st of December,and that her Mails will be closed at the Post Offices at Victoria and Macao, at 5 o'clock P. M. on the 30th Instant,
By order,
RICHARD WOOSNAM. Government House, Victoria, Hongkong, 22nd November, 1843.
•
THE annexed Copy of an Official Com- munication from His Excellency the Im- perial Commissioner intimating a modifica- tion which has been made in the new Tariff regarding the article “Foreign Ginseng," is republished for general information.
M. C.
last,
candâreens each ( 1. 5.) instead of one tael
T. M..
five mace each (1. 5.), which typographical error is hereby pointed out and is to be corrected accordingly.
Trud copy,
T
10
10.4.
RICHARD WOOSNAM. SEALED Tenders will be received at this Office until Friday the 1st December at Noon, from such persons as may be willing to Contract for building Barracks at Sywan. Plans and Specifications may be seen at the Office of the Commanding and Superintending Royal Engineer.
EDWARD PINE COFFIN. C. G.,
Commissariat.
Victoria, 21st November, 1843. ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE. (To the Editor of the Friend of China.)
Victoria, 21st. November, 1843.
Sir,
It is also notified, that on a careful ex- amination of the English Version of the Tariff promulgated on the 22nd. of July it has been discovered, that the Article "Seawrath of the local Government by a review of their Without wishing to draw upon your head the Otter Skins” are inserted at one mace five sagacious measures for governing the island, I your columns to draw the attention of my fellow still hope you will allow me through the medium of townsmen to the deplorably inefficient management of the Post Office and Harbour Master's, Departments. The Post Office is so bad that scarcely a day passes without just cause of complaint; in fact, Private indi- letters the best way they can, to passing them through prefer looking after the despatch of their own the Post Office. When they have any important or valuable documents requiring despatch for Macao, they send by private fast boat at a cost of 25 cents per letter, in preference to through the post, for they know by experience that if they trust to it there is no telling when they will have a reply Mails for the Northward be easily avoided, it only wants a few proper regulati.
By Order of his Excellency Her Britan- nic Majesty's Plenipotentiary &c. &c. in China,
RICHARD WOOSNÁM.“ Government House, Victoria,
20th November, 184.
viduals
have hitherto been dictated altogether by the latter power. Like Canton on the seaboard, the frontier lown or river port of Kiatcha is the only mart where the brother of the Sun and Moon condescends to inter- change commodities with his western neighbours. The trade is also exclusively one of berter; tea and silks linens. are exchanged for leather, furs, cottons, woollens, and A smuggling trade, which appears to be se cretly connived at by both Governments, has lately
arisen, by the route of the Caspian and Siberia; but,
like the legitimate commerce of Kiatcha, it is also a strictly barter trade. The drain of Sycee silver, there- fore which was so evidently the real offence of our ́opium traffic with China, is in no great danger of in- terrupting her amicable relations with Russia. The trade between Russin and China is rapidly increasing in magnitude and importance, Between the years 1838 and 1841 it had more than trebled in amount, and in Russia had advanced largely upon the rates at the yet at the latter period the prices of Chinese produce 1838, to the value of about 2,000,000 silver rubles, but former one. The imports of tea into Russia were, in
in
1841 the amount imported was valued at more than 7,000,000. This is exclusive of the coarse and com- leaves of the shrub pressed into solid blocks, which is mon article called "black tea," consisting of the fällen used by the Tartars and Calmucs; so that, connecting this with the circumstance that the price of tea was very high in Russia in 1841, we deduce the singular fact that there, as almost everywhere else in Europe, tea is coming more and more into daily consumption, and is taking its place among the commodities de pre. and China are secret ones, conducted principally by a miére necessité. The diplomatic relations of Russia small establishment of priests, or persons in the garb of priests, at Pekin, which is kept up by the former Go- vernment, ostensibly for religious and literary purposes, but in reality for those of diplomacy. We think it for an extension of the points of communication along probable that she may have succeeded in negotiating the northern and north-western frontier of China, cor along her sea-board. This would account for the pre- responding with those which have just taken place
sent active demand for cotton yarns, from Russia, for on their present footing the balance of trade is tremer- dously against us. Calculated upon an average of years, our imports from Russia amount to seven mil- lions annually, whereas that country takes in return
the same calculation.-Manchester Herald.
something short of two millions of British produce, on
tial merchants of London, whose interests are identified
A memorial, very numerously signed by the influen
extended and more perfect communication with India with a permanent transit through Egypt, and with an
KEYING, HIGH IMPERIAL COMMISSIO. O are very irregular. All this inconvenience might and China by that route, has been sent in to Her
NER, Governor General of Kiangsoo and Kiangse, &c. &c. hereby makes this Offi- cial Communication.
The American Consul having repres ented to us, "that in arranging the new “Tariff, the duty on Foreign Ginseng had alone been left unequal, and that it was proposed to rate it as follows, vizt. on every
this
100 Catties of Foreign Ginseng to rate - two tenths as first quality, and eight tenths as inferior quality, and levy duties on these rates according to "the newly established Rules; and that once agreed to, afterwards there “should be no more change, and other words to the same effect. Whereupon 1, the High Commission having consulted with the Governor Ge
Lain ed from the
Foreign Gin-
seng that the al
Correct
posal Be
rialisin
ving
high
and
that
expres
ons, and due enforcement of the same.
As to the Harbour arrangements, they seem to have become a dead letter. In several instances vessels have come in and gone out of the bay without the slightest and with regard especially to departure, a vessel has trouble being taken to make them report themselves;
frequently sailed before the residents on the island are aware that she is about to be despatched. Why is not the regulation requiring Vessels to give 24 hours no- tice of sailing, I would
our authorities to adopt the
system of Post Office and Harbour Regulations as pursued in Singapore; it is simple, inexpensive, easy to work out in its details and yet most efficient,
I remain, Sir, Your Obedient Servant,
HJ
The Cecilia, Captain Buttry suffered severely during the late Gale. At the commencement on the 28th Octobes (sea-time) in Lat 179 32 N. Long, 119° 49' E met with heavy gale, from the N. NE. which with increasing fury until the 31st, when it ican The Cecilia lost two men, one of art of her cargo was mer sheathing
and
No
On
and
Majesty's Government and to the East India Company, calling attention to the uncertainty of the first, without a convention with the present Pasha of Egypt, whose natural course of life may be said to be nearly run, aud of the necessity that exists of a more perfect intercourse with India and China, that commerce may derive all ted to afford. We hope this good example will be the advantages which Steam communication is calcula
followed by the merchants of India and China.
F
Monthly Times,
Mr Stikeman, the secretary to the East India and China Association, has prepared a comparative state. ment of the number of British ships entered inwards and cleared outwards to and from places within the limits of the East-India Company's charter, from 1st January to 30th June, in the years 1842 and 1843, which shows a very serious falling off; but this may be in some degree accounted for by the fact, that the amount of ships and tonnage cleared outwards, during the first six months of 1842, was swelled to an unusual extent by the constant transmission of troops to India and China. Ibid.
M. Grube, of Dusseldorf, has been appointed by the Court of Berlin, Prussian consul at Canton for the whole Chinese empire. Ibid.
We find the navy at the present moment to consist of 330 vessels of all descriptions, mounting 3,471 gune We viz
yacht, 14 gea-going, he of battle shipe, 31 frigates, 95 sloops-of-war
sters of esels the
he state of the.
may
sels 25 surveying a
troops ships.
guard ships
including 9 steamer hip, and 10 statio
T-There has been more firmness
larga bolders, and the retail dealers, speculat during fall had run themselves so bare of stock that
been compelled to buy largely at the past sales,