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way of exhibiting a contempt which would have been a reflection on his own want of manners. He had not gone beyond the Court to receive you because he was a guest of the Yamên, and when he received notice of your approach, he imagined he would have had time to attend to his personal wants before your arrival.
Having delivered himself of this protest, he asked of his own accord whether the Opium Conferences had been continued with the Ministers of the Yamên. This gave me an opportunity to give him an account of the whole of the negotiations before and since his visit to Peking, and to lay before him almost all the contents of your Memorandum of instructions, with the exception of a few points which I reserved for future use.
When I came to your question as to whether he was in favour of increase of Tariff, of a uniform rate of li-kin to be collected with the Tariff, or of any other scheme, he said, in regard to the first, that unless the increase were more than 15 taels, as proposed by you, he did not consider it would find acceptance, apart from the fact that its acceptance by the British Government was a matter of doubt. As regarded the uniform rate, he asked me straight out whether I would tell him what was your ultimate figure. I told him (explaining again that you had as yet named no rate, but had only showed the Yamên what rate, on their own showing, they would be justified in demanding) that you were prepared to recommend more than 80 taels, and after some pressure, I admitted that you might be willing to sanction 90 taels. He seemed relieved when I brought out the figure, and though he said he didn't think that the Yamên would agree, I don't think he said it with sufficient vehemence to show that he meant it. He followed this up with the remark, "Why won't Sir T. Wade make it a hundred? I could manage to get that accepted, but I should have to face lao Tso;* the Yamên daren't." He dwelt on this at some length, declaring that the extra 10 taels would never be felt, and that opium would easily bear it. I reminded him that you had undertaken to submit all proposals to the Government, but I doubted if you could support a rate which was 20 per cent. in excess of the estimate you bad made, the grounds upon which you based the estimate having been enlarged upon by you in his presence.
After some further talk, in which, on my part, I tried to show him, with a view to working round to Ma's mission, how essential it was that a common understanding should be arrived at out here, if the opium question was to be settled speedily, and assured him that you were no less desirous than be declared himself to be of closing this and the trade question. I said that a number of other schemes had been devised, some of which were not without their merits, and perhaps bis Excellency had a scheme of his own which might be better than any yet proposed. I mentioned, among the other schemes, that of Samuel, The Chung-t'ang which brought us directly on to his visit to the Grand Secretary. said he had had a long talk with Samuel, and had recommended him to see Mr. Hart, and Samuel had pressed him to to get into communication with the Yamên, if he could. say what amount of opium each province would take, with a view to laying down supplies at each Treaty port, but the Chung-t'ang had told Samuel that this would be impossible. He Samuel had then broached the monopoly scheme, but his details were not intelligible. had imagined that, on Samuel's return from Peking, he would see him again, but Samuel only spent a few hours here on his way down, and sent a message through Detring to say he could not stop. Meanwhile, some Chinese merchants at Hong Kong and Canton had sent the Chung-tang a petition, in which they begged his support to a scheme for establishing a Guild at Hong Kong for the exclusive sale of foreign opium in China. This petition was accompanied with a guarantee to deposit a security fund of a large amount, and a draft of Regulations by which the Guild were prepared to abide. On receipt of this petition the Chung-tang had decided to send Ma to Hong Kong to make private inquiries He had, I as to the genuineness of the offer, and the substance of the men who made it. understood him to say, memorialized the Throne on the subject, and had instructed Ma, if he found that the offer was a genuine one, and the promoters of the scheme had sufficient He might possibly be funds to carry it out, to see Governor Hennessy, and consult him, then told to go on to Calcutta and sec the Indian authorities, who, he imagined, would give Ma a hearing. This gave me the chance of recording your protest against independent action, which I had already enlarged upon in the case of Tso and his Memorial, in the inadvisability of which the Chung-t'ang had at once concurred. He made haste to explain that he was convinced that you and he must work together if the question was to be settled; and that he had told Tso as much, and bad thrown cold water on bis Excellency's scheme, in a Memorial to the Throne, in which he had pointed out that the plan involved a departure from Treaty, and was, besides, quite impossible of execution. Tso Chang-t'ang was an unpractical man. His views were completely one-sided, but he was so overbearing
* Old Tso.-T. W.
+ Commissioner of Customs.
Tso's Memorial of June last.
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that the whole of the Yamen were afraid of him, and left it to him (Li Hung Ch'ang) to tackle him. Li Hung Ch'ang had been wanting an opportunity to communicate with you,
He was glad but while this monopoly scheme was in embryo he could not well write. had come down, and begged I would write fully to you on all he had said and was going to say. He wished to work with you completely in this scheme, and had nothing to conceal. Meanwhile, Ma was making his inquiries. He, the Chung-tang, would be in Peking in about two months for the Imperial obsequies, when he would have an opportunity of seeing you. By that time the answers of the different provinces to Tso's Memorial would have come in, and his scheme could be disposed of. He would be very glad, however, if he could see you in Tien-tsin before this, for he would like to talk to you about Ma's mission. Of course, if Ma's inquiries proved that the promoters of this monopoly scheme were not men of substance, the plan must fall through; but if his Report showed that their plans were acceptable, his Excellency would be glad to talk to you. Did I think you could come down? I said I thought you might be visiting Tien-tsin when the Princes came up, if they came, and his Excellency then said he would send you a line through Bristow, if Ma's inquiries were satisfactory, in the hope that you would come down and see him. He could not visit Peking himself before the funeral, and he could not commit himself to writing. He wanted much to know whether Ma would be received in Calcutta or not. I said that the Indian Government would, no doubt, be guided by you in all negotiations regarding opium. He then asked whether you would send any one to Calcutta. Of course I could not tell him, but explained that the India Office was the supreme authority in Indian matters, and that no doubt they would be in constant relations with the Foreign Office, who would keep them informed of all that went on.
I should have earlier said that, before entering into all these details, the Chung-tang had expressed his conviction that nothing short of a tsung k'ou* for opium would work satisfactorily, and that Hong Kong was the best place for a depôt; that in the event of Hong Kong being the depot, a high official should be posted there to check the returns "Has the of import. He then asked me, rather suddenly, and as a by-the-way remark, Yaniên spoken to Sir T. Wade about appointing a Consul at Hong Kong ?”
I replied that I had heard no recent proposal of that nature. He then told me that the suggestion had come from Chang Chih-tung, who had written to the Grand Secretary about the matter, and had been referre. by him to the Yamên. He also said that Chang Chih-tung and the Governor-General at Canton had raised an objection to the establishment of the monopoly Guild at Hong Kong, because, in the event of war between China and England, the supply of opium, the property of
The Grand Chinese merchants, would be in the power of the British Government. Secretary had pointed out, in answer to this objection, that the supplies came from India, and that, in the very improbable event of a war between China and England, there would be a blockade of the ports, and no opium could come into China in any case. He dwelt much on the advantage of having the Guild at Hong Kong. He should have to insist, in his Memorial, that the Guild was a purely Chinese affair, or the shu-tai-tzu ("literati") would be up in arms, and they would be free from the rapacity of their own officials in a British Colony. He would have no objection to foreigners being interested as long as they were not avowed members of the Guild, and this would give the Sassoons an opportunity of protecting themselves, for he felt sure they would bring a very powerful interest to bear against a monopoly scheme, if it was going to ruin their business.
It is difficult to maintain the sequence of all that was said in the course of so long a conversation, but before we had reached the stage I am now reporting, I led up to the point of the inseparability of the opium and trade questions by asking the Chung-t'ang if he had considered what he was going to do with other than Indian opium. The question seemed to startle him, and he didn't answer for a moment. I showed him how easy it would be for a Treaty Power with an opium clause to import opium from elsewhere, for it was grown in other countries than India. The Grand Secretary suggested Persia at once, and said, Couldn't the British Government arrange with Persia ?
Couldn't Sir T. Wade all
you
write to them about it ?" He then eagerly pressed me to write to you and tell that had passed, and say how anxious he was to co-operate with you. He said he thought England could induce other countries to accept arrangements she might make about opium. I said possibly she could, if they could get their commercial grievances, about which they were much more interested, settled. He told me the Yamên had written to the Proviu- cial Government about the 10 per cent. commutation rate, and were consulting them about guarantees. He asked what stage negotiations had reached in Peking, and I told him of
* A port-general, or common port of distribution.-T. W.
A Chinese who, during the late misunderstanding with Russia, was the loudest advocate of war policy; now Governor of Shan Si.
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