some importance; as it is, they do not deserve a second thought from our merchants, they will not have the smallest influence on the trade of either Kwangai or Yunnan, None the less, however, should every effort be made to secure the opening of another port on the upper course of the Canton river, as has already been suggested by the Hong-kong Chamber of Commerce. Such a port would be very valuable in itself, but its value, or the urgency for it, is not increased a whit because of this treaty. The remaining articles, down to the 14th, are customs regulations of the ordinary character in such treaties. Article 14 is worthy of notice, inasmuch as it provides for the total prohibition of the trade in opium between Tonquin and China. It is not long since an important French official stated that he looked forward to the day when the major part of the cost of the French administration in Annam and Tonquin would be met by the trade in opium which, he said, was sure to spring up between the two, as the French could grow the poppy in Tonquin and prepare opium to suit the Chinese palate as well as the British in India. The present treaty shatters this dream, as it destroys so many other illusions. Article 15 specifies the goods which are to be contraband; they are those usual in other Chinese treaties. By Article 16, jurisdiction—civil and criminal—is regulated in the usual manner, while the following clause provides for the reciprocal extradition of criminals and deserters. By Article 18 the rules of the maritime customs are to apply to cases not specially provided for in the treaty, and the last article provides for the exchange of ratifications.
As will be seen, the instrument gives one small and at the present moment utterly valueless concession to France, viz: - the reduction in import and export dues. But it is none the less the duty of British merchants in the East and at home to seek for new openings in Southern China, and the most obvious of those is the opening of a new port on the Canton river. When the proposal was first made, the late Sir Harry Parkes thought the time unfavourable, for the Franco-Chinese quarrel was then at its height. The same objection does not apply now, and the point is one that may well be mooted in the forthcoming negotiations with reference to trade across our Burmese frontier.
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REC2
(REGE 17 JUL 85,
Foreign Office.
July 18. 1886
15.1586
Sanidirected by The Earl of Rosebery to transmit to you to be laid before Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies His Lordship for may such observations have to make thereupon,
copy of a Despatch from Her Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Peking enclosing a translation The Under Secretary of State Colonial Office.
fro...