Containing suggestions
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to the revision of the Treaty of Printeen
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I Am Le
To His Excellency
Sir Richard Graves MacDonnell, C.B.
MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY,
Governor of Hongkong, &c., &e., &c.
The chief seat of the business which our firm carries on in Chiun being, and since the first orection of the Colony having been, located in Hongkong, we respectfully solicit Your Excellency's good offices to assist us in bringing before Her Majesty's Government this exposition of our views as to the forthcoming revision of the Treaty of Tientsin.
2. We find our first duty in entering upon this most important subject, to be predication that the Treaty of Tientsin has proved itself an instrument which does great honour to those who originally framed it. Its results show it to have sprung from a sagacious and statesmanlike prevision of the necessities of commerce; and, aside from the discussion of mere details, the fact is borne home to us that in addressing Your Excellency, as we have the honour to do now, our care should be to advocate extension of the views indicated by the Treaty itself, together with liberality, advertence, and consideration towards foreign interests on the part of the functionaries entrusted with its conduct and administration, rather than to suggest any radical alterations in its terins or policy. We shall, in the course of this communication, find it necessary to animadvert upon the arbitrary manner in which certain privileges-notably, that of residence in the interior of China--conferred by Treaty upon British subjects, are construed and withheld by the Queen's Ministers and Representatives; we shall feel ourselves, in the interests of trade and commerce, urgently called upon to recommend certain alterations in practice which our experience leads us to believe are imperatively required; bat our main object throughout will be to impress upon Her Majesty's Government our conviction that during the forthcoming revision of the Treaty, their efforts should be directed more to the general development of that instru- ment's original intentions, than to the further acquisition from the Chinese of minor exemptions and immanities, which would neither advance British national interests, nor be gracefully conceded by the Emperor's advisers. We hold firmly that a defective treaty, rigidly insisted on, is of greater value than one in which no flaw is to be detected, but whose beneficial enact- inents are nevertheless set aside or ignored, either of design or of neglect. In the one case disappointment is never entailed upon those who may adventure their means upon the faith of the document's provisions; but in the other, hopes are constantly excited only to be defeated, and rain may speedily accrue from too implicit a reliance upon stipulations unfulfilled. Under the latter category should the Treaty of Tientsin, we believe, be classed. Its conception displayed masterly skill, and it has already bestowed great benefits upon commerce; yet these benefits are but as shadows when compared with those which might have been reaped from it, had the rights which it confers been insisted upon in their integrity. We know well the honourable and prudential motives which have actuated Her Majesty's Government in this matter, and we acknowledge the dignified patience which they have displayed towards China under the trying ordeal upon which she entered in 1800; but forbearance is now costing England more than it brings in, and we anxiously trust that the opportunity afforded by the approaching revision will be used as much to impross upon the Chinese that in the future treaty rights and obligations shall be sternly exacted from them, as to obtain from them additional aivan- tages and privileges.
3. Having promised thus much as to the general scope of our views upon this subject, we should state that our suggestions as to the points to be inost prominently borne in mind by British diplomatists at the corning conference, range themselves under four heads; namely, the right of residence up-country, inclusive both of the privilege of navigating, from the ports of entry already established, the Inland waters of China by means of foreign-built craft of a certain small size, and of the suppression of all extra-covenanted taxes and exactions; the better, more equitable, and certain administration of justice between foreigners and Chinese; the rightful application and the possible reduction of Tonnage dues; together with the revision of the Tariff, inclusive of the addition of the commodity, Salt, to its list of Imports, of the rescission of that "Rule of Trade" which renders Articles IX and XXVIII of the Treaty inapplicable to Opium, and of extension of the time allowed for claiming Drawback of Duty upon goods re-exported.
4. To commence with the first, and, perhaps, the most important, of all these desiderata—— that is to say, the right of residence in the interior of China, with its corollaries as above set forth. It is not, we humbly conceive, to be donied, that by Article XII of the Treaty of Tientsin, the right of residence at "other placee" than the ports was conceded to British subjects by China, contrary interpretation hitherto on the part of our own Government notwith- standing. We attach the highest importance to this right, which bus, nevertheless, been over since its concession studiously denied to us. England can achieve the reward deserved by the sacrifices which she has made in this Eaupire; We see in this right the only means whereby the sole method by which Western civilization can be extended; the single channel through which is to be attained that abundant trade upon the confines of which wo hover, 'and which would prove so greatly fraught with benefit to our manufacturing masses, as well as redound so much to the advantage of the Inland population of China. We ask, therefore, that our right of residence up-country be no longer withheld from us, but that British subjects be permitted to settle in the interior, to hire, own, and erect suitable dwellings and places of business, and to navigate the Inland waters of China, from the ports already opened, by means of foreign-built craft, to be registered, or licensed, or obliged to carry sailing-letters, and not to exceed a certain size, whether propelled by steam or otherwise. The first benefit, and one of the utmost importance, which would result from such enlightened and liberal policy, if puraned, would be the abolition at one fell blow of the illegal, because renounced by Treaty, inposts and exactions persistently laid from place to place by local authority upon all foreign manufactures and upon produce destined for foreign use. It is not necessary that we should furnish here details of the nature of these imposts and exactions; the fact of their existence and the shapes they take are as well known to Her Majesty's Government as to ourselves, and their amount in the aggregate far exceeds that of the legitimate Import and Export duties; they are the deadly foes of the English
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