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Treaty, at all ports now open to British trade, and within a similar period at all ports that may hereafter be opened, the authority appointed to superintend the collection of duties shall be obliged, upon application to the Consul, to declare the amount of duties leviable on produce between the place of production and the port of shipment, and upon imports between the Consular port in question and the inland markets named by the Consul; and that a notification thereof shall be published in English and Chinese for general information.
ART. XXXIX.—Any British merchant who has cargo to land or ship, must apply to the Superintendent of Customs for a special permit. Cargo landed or shipped without such permit, will be liable to confiscation.
ART. XL.—No transhipment from one vessel to another can be made without special permission, under pain of confiscation of the goods so transhipped.
ART. XLI. When all dues and duties shall have been paid, the Superintendent of Customs shall grant a port-clearance, and the Consul shall then return the ship's papers, so that she may depart on her voyage.
But it shall be at the option of any British subject, desiring to convey produce purchased inland to a port, or to convey imports, from a port to an inland market, to clear his goods of all transit duties, by payment of a single charge. The amount of this charge shall be leviable on exports at the first barrier they may have to pass, or, on imports, at the port at which they are landed; and on payment thereof a certificate shall be issued, which shall exempt the goods from all further inland charges whatsoever.
It is further agreed, that the amount of this charge shall be calculated, as nearly as possible, at the rate of two and a-half per cent. ad valorem, and that it shall be fixed for each article at the Conference to be held at Shanghai for the revision of the Tariff.
It is distinctly understood, that the payment of transit dues, by commutation or otherwise, shall in no way affect the tariff duties on imports or exports, which will continue to be levied separately and in full.
ART. XXIX.—British merchant-vessels, of more than one hundred and fifty tons burden, shall be charged tonnage dues at the rate of four mace per ton; if of one hundred and fifty tons and under, they shall be charged at the rate of one mace per ton.
Any vessel clearing from any of the open ports of China for any other of the open ports, or for Hongkong, shall be entitled, on application of the master, to a special certificate from the Customs, exhibition of which she shall be exempted from all further payment of tonnage-dues in any open port of China, for a period of four months, to be reckoned from the date of her port-clearance.
ART. XXX. The master of any British merchant-vessel may, within forty-eight hours after the arrival of his vessel, but not later, decide to depart without breaking bulk, in which case he will not be subject to pay tonnage-dues. But tonnage-dues shall be held due after the expiration of the said forty-eight hours. No other fees or charges upon entry or departure shall be levied.
ART. XXXI.—No tonnage-dues shall be payable on boats employed by British subjects in the conveyance of passengers, baggage, letters, articles of provision, or other articles not subject to duty between any of the open ports. All cargo boats, however, conveying merchandize subject to duty shall pay tonnage-dues once in four months at the rate of one mace per register ton.
ART. XLII. With respect to articles subject, according to the Tariff, to an ad valorem duty, if British merchant cannot agree with the Chinese officer in affixing a value, then each party shall appoint two or three merchants to look at the goods, and the highest price at which any of these merchants would be willing to purchase them, shall be assumed as the value of the goods.
ART. XLIII.—Duties shall be charged upon the net weight of each article, making a deduction for the tare weight of congee, &c. To fix the tare on any article such as tea, if the British merchant cannot agree with the Custom-house officer, then each party shall choose so many chests out of every hundred, which being first weighed in gross, shall afterwards be tared, and the average tare upon these tests shall be assumed as the tare upon the whole; and upon this principle shall the tare be fixed upon other goods and packages. If there should be any other points in dispute which cannot be settled, the British merchant may appeal to his Consul, who will communicate the particulars of the case to the Superintendent of Customs, that it may be equitably arranged. But the appeal must be made within twenty-four hours or it will not be attended to. While such points are still unsettled, the Superintendent of Customs shall postpone the insertion of the same in his books.
ART. XLIV. Upon all damaged goods a fair reduction of duty shall be allowed, proportionate to their deterioration. If any disputes arise, they shall be settled in the manner pointed out in the clause of this Treaty having reference to articles which pay duty ad valorem.
ART. XLV. British merchants who may have imported merchandize into any of the open ports, and paid the duty thereon, if they desire to re-export the same, shall be entitled to make application to the Superintendent of Customs, who, in order to prevent fraud on the revenue, shall cause examination to be made by suitable officers, to see that the duties paid on such goods, as entered in the Custom-house books, correspond with the representation made, and that the goods remain with their original marks unchanged. He shall then make a memorandum on the port-clearance of the goods, and of the amount of duties paid, and deliver the same to the merchant; and shall also certify the facts to the officers of Customs of the other ports. All which being done, on the arrival in port of the vessel in which the goods are laden, everything being found on examination there to correspond, she shall be permitted to break bulk, and land the said goods, without being subject to the payment of any additional duty thereon.
But if, on such examination, the Superintendent of Customs shall detect any fraud on the revenue in the case, then the goods shall be subject to confiscation by the Chinese Government.
British merchants desiring to re-export duty-paid imports to a foreign country, shall be entitled, on complying with the same conditions as in the case of re-exportation to another port in China, to a drawback-certificate, which shall be a valid tender to the Customs in payment of import or export duties.
Foreign grain brought into any port of China in a British ship, if no part thereof has been landed, may be re-exported without hindrance.
ART. XLVI. The Chinese authorities at each port shall adopt the means they may judge most proper to prevent the revenue suffering from fraud or smuggling.
ART. XLVII.—British merchant-vessels are not entitled to resort to other than the ports of trade declared open by this Treaty. They are not unlawfully to enter other ports in China, or to carry on clandestine trade along the coasts thereof. Any vessel violating this provision, shall, with her cargo, be subject to confiscation by the Chinese Government.
ART. XLVIII.—If any British merchant-vessel be concerned in smuggling, the goods, whatever their value or nature, shall be subject to confiscation by the Chinese authorities, and the ship may be prohibited from trading further, and sent away as soon as her accounts shall have been adjusted and paid.
ART. XLIX. All penalties enforced, or confiscations made, under this Treaty, shall belong and be appropriated to the public service of the Government of China.
ART. L.—All official communications, addressed by the Diplomatic and Consular Agents of Her Majesty the Queen to the Chinese authorities, shall, henceforth, be written in English. They will for the present be accompanied by a Chinese version, but it is understood that, in the event of there being any difference of meaning between the English and Chinese text, the English Government will hold the sense as expressed in the English text to be the correct sense. This provision is to apply also to the Treaty now negotiated, the Chinese text of which has been carefully corrected by the English original.
ART. LI.—It is agreed, that henceforward the character "I" (barbarian) shall not be applied to the Government or subjects of Her Britannic Majesty, in any Chinese official document issued by the Chinese authorities either in the capital or in the provinces.
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