14
SUPPLEMENT TO
health and distinguished future, we have the honor to remain,
Your most obedient Servants,
BRADLEY & Co.
EDWARD VINCENT.
D. HOSSUNJEE.
To His Excellency Sir RUTHERFORD ALCOCK, K.C.B,
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, &c., &c., in China,
To Messrs. BRADLEY AND COMPANY AND
OTHERS, at Swatow.
CANTON, Dec. 17th, 1869.
GENTLEMEN,-I have to acknowledge the receipt of the address which circumstances prevented your presenting to me in person during my visit to Swatow.
I am glad to learn from those who are on the spot that many practical benefits have resulted from the opening of Chao-show-foo last year, and that the efforts made since to render your communications between the two ports more secure, as well as to remove impediments of various kinds to the development of trade, have not been wholly unsuccessful. Your appreciation of those efforts and ready recognition of the advantages resulting, I beg to assure you, lose none of their value in my estimation from the smallness of the community you represent; nor with reference to the various questions raised in the course of your remarks on existing disadvantages to trade, am I less disposed on that account to give them my best attention.
In respect to the levy of octroi duties at Chao-chow-foo on foreign goods, there can be no doubt the foreign merchant is entitled by Treaty to lay down his goods at any Treaty Port without their being subjected to other charge than the payment of the import duty according to Tariff; and Chao-chow foo being a Treaty Port, the levy of any octroi duty has very properly been resisted by H.M.'s Acting Consul.
But, as you observe, the Chinese have many ways of evading in collusion with each other any Customs' tax, or rendering nugatory any regulations. And if exemption of foreign goods makes it impossible to levy an octroi duty on native articles of trade, from the apparent injustice of such a differential duty in favour of the foreigner or his trade, and thus causes a loss of some Tael 80,000 local revenue, as the Chinese authorities declare, it is possible that rather than lose this they may covertly raise obstacles to the trade in foreign goods either at Chao-chow-foo or in the interior, fatal to its prosperity.
While China is governed as it is, the danger of such devious courses being resorted to must always be great. This and many other difficulties of a similar nature, however, may I hope be removed, if the recent convention should come into operation. It is therein provided that all foreign textile fabrics shall pass free of all charges in the nine provinces, whether in Chinese or foreign hands, on payment of the Import and Transit duty together, and this without the necessity for any transit pass. The collection of the transit duty on all such foreign goods being thus secured, the one payment is held to be an equivalent for every kind of inland tax that can lawfully be levied.
With reference to the injury inflicted upon the trade of Swatow by the proximity of Hong-kong and the further facilities afforded by the absence of an effective preventive service combined with the corrupt practices of the native authorities along the coast for large smuggling operations, I trust something may ultimately be effected to remedy the evil you point out, and put the colony and the Treaty Ports on a more equal footing.
It is indeed very desirable that steps should be taken with a view to the adoption of more satisfactory arrangements than those now existing between the Chinese and the British Colonial authorities; and I am, in compliance with instructions from Her Majesty's Government, now in communication with His Excellency the Viceroy of the two Provinces with a view to promote this object.
By a mutual accord and the adoption of reciprocal measures on the part of the Chinese and the Colonial authorities, I see no reason why the intercourse between Hongkong and the neighbouring coast should not be placed on a more regular and satisfactory footing, so as to protect the Chinese Revenue, without unreasonably obstructing the daily and legitimate traffic between the Colony and the mainland.
So far as the disposition manifested by the Viceroy to meet these views is concerned, there seems to be no insuperable obstacle, and any measures that will plainly tend to discourage contraband trade are so obviously in the interest of the Chinese Government and the High Authorities who administer the Provinces, that they will I believe readily concur in such arrangements as may at the same time be necessary to protect and facilitate the legitimate commerce of the Colony.
Both must be provided for, however, if any practical good is to result, and all the advantages of a Treaty Port in China under closely regulated conditions of trade can scarcely be combined with those of a free port in the British dominions which recognizes no Customs' control.
It is plain that there must be a mutual spirit of accommodation for any settlement to be arrived at. The Chinese are willing to concede a right of transhipment and other conditions of a treaty port to Hongkong, but the merchants cannot expect to combine all the advantages of a free port with the privileges of a Treaty Port.
So far as trade in native junks with the mainland is concerned, a certain regulated right of supervision and control over their own ships and subjects is a necessity, and cannot be denied.
JANUARY 7, 1870.
Its exercise cannot be refused without destroying the Chinese revenue on the one hand and exposing the Treaty ports on the other to a competition on unequal terms, of which you are even now complaining. Nor is any such inequitable arrangement contemplated by Her Majesty's Government. On a basis of reciprocal advantage and concession there is much to be gained on both sides, and nothing to be lost which either side ought to seek to retain. And to facilitate such arrangements as may best secure this end certain articles in the convention were expressly framed.
The treatment of claims against Chinese you are perfectly justified in saying, calls for improvement, and the subject with all the difficulties attaching to it has not been overlooked on the revision of the Treaty. I believe the adoption of a written commercial code and the constitution of International Mixed Courts, with fixed Rules of practice, to offer the only practical remedy for the abuses now existing; and the first part of this programme has been provided for in the convention.
You call my attention lastly to the disadvantage under which the British flag as compared with that of other nationalities labours in the traffic with our own possessions at the Straits. I have received similar representations from Amoy, and the whole subject has been under consideration. It is obvious however that legislative action at home is required to provide a remedy, and I have already taken the necessary steps to bring the matter clearly before the proper authorities.
-I have the honor to be Gentlemen,
Your obedient servant,
RUTHERFORD ALCOCK.
PRINTED AT THE "DAILY PRESS" OFFICE, WYNDHAM STREET, HONGKONG.
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