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above quoted, I have the honour to request that you will be good enough to ascertain, and inform me definitely in reply, whether Messrs. Butterfield and Swire did send Su Ting Chieh to Lien Ch'eng with orders to set up a still and prepare camphor there, so that I may take further action in the matter.
I have, &c.
Sir,
Inclosure 3 in No. 1.
Consul Hausser to Thotai Yen Nien.
(Seal of Taotai.)
Amoy, September 17, 1903. IN reply to your despatch of the 15th instant, I have the honour to state that Messrs. Butterfield and Swire wrote to me on that date to the effect that one of their employés, a man called Su Ting Chieh, came into Amoy the previous day for the purpose of getting from them some more funds for the purchase of camphor for Messrs. Butterfield and Swire. That on the same night he was arrested by order of the Hai Fang Ting, money to the extent of 22 dollars, together with a silver watch, being taken from him by the police runners.
The offence for which this man has been arrested appears to be that he has been engaged in the camphor trade in the interior. Messrs. Butterfield and Swire state that the man was sent up-country by them with instructions to buy and/or prepare camphor on their account, and to send same down to them in Amoy. They know of no Regulations whatever to prevent their employé—a Chinese subject—proceeding into the interior for this purpose; they are quite prepared to uphold the legality of, and hold themselves responsible for, their action in the matter, and protest emphatically against the arrest of their servant for simply carrying out their instructions. If the Chinese authorities have any complaint to make against Butterfield and Swire, the correct course would have been to lay the matter before me.
Messrs. Butterfield and Swire add further that, since writing the above they have received a letter from their agent at Chang Ping to the effect that on the 11th instant a Japanese went to the village of Hsiao Hu She, where the villagers were preparing camphor for their Chang Ping agent, and after telling them that no persons but the Japanese himself was allowed to make camphor, took away from them about 23 catties of camphor oil and about 80 catties of camphor. This village is about 20 li from Chang Ping. The following night the Japanese visited their agent at Chang Ping, and seized from him 11 cases of camphor oil and 1 case of camphor, which were already in a boat engaged by Messrs. Butterfield and Swire's agent to bring the camphor down to Amoy, and which were their own property.
In my despatches to you of the 5th July and the 5th December, 1902, I have already pointed out that, in the opinion of His Majesty's Government, the proposed arrangements for the establishment of a Government Camphor Monopoly for the Province of Fukien constituted an infringement of the principle laid down in the XIVth Article of the French Treaty of Tien-tsin, by which coalitions for the purpose of establishing a commercial monopoly are prohibited, and I informed you that His Majesty's Minister had requested the Wai Wu Pu to issue instructions to the authorities concerned that no interference could be permitted with the right of British subjects to purchase camphor in the interior equally with other native produce.
In sending a native employé into the interior to purchase camphor from the native producer, Messrs. Butterfield and Swire are clearly within their Treaty rights. To enable them to purchase such native produce, it is equally clear that no monopoly of the production can be allowed in the case of camphor any more than in that of sugar, paper, or any other article. Having purchased the goods they require, Messrs. Butterfield and Swire are further, by Treaty, entitled to temporarily rent or hire godowns for the storage of such produce prior to its shipment to the port. In no respect, therefore, have they infringed any Treaty regulations. I must further point out that if, as stated by Messrs. Butterfield and Swire, a Japanese subject claims to be allowed to manufacture camphor in the interior, Messrs. Butterfield and Swire, or any other British subjects, are equally entitled under the most-favoured-nation clause to claim the same privilege, and that I am quite at a loss to understand why a Japanese employed as a technical expert should be going about in the interior looking for native camphor stills, and presuming so far as to seize goods belonging to a British merchant.
The man arrested having throughout acted under instructions from Messrs. Butterfield and Swire they alone are responsible, and I must therefore ask you to give orders for his immediate release, and for the restoration of the money, &c., taken from him by the police, and that you will at the same time send instructions for the immediate restoration of the camphor and camphor oil belonging to Messrs. Butterfield and Swire illegally seized by your Agent.
In order to dispose of the pretensions of the Fukien authorities to put in force Regulations nullifying the Treaties between our respective Governments, I am reporting this case to His Majesty's Minister at Peking, and sending him a copy of this despatch.
I have, &c. (Signed) P. F. HAUSSER.
Your Highness,
Inclosure 4 in No. 1.
Sir E. Satow to Prince Ching.
Peking, October 13, 1903. HIS Majesty's Consul at Amoy reports to me that the Chinese authorities at that port have arrested a Chinese employé of Messrs. Butterfield and Swire, a British firm, on the ground that he has been engaging in the camphor trade in the interior, and further, that Japanese in the service of the official Camphor Bureau travel about the country prohibiting the natives from preparing camphor for sale to the foreign firms.
In my note of the 28th October of last year, I pointed out that the arrangements proposed to be established in Fukien Province were equivalent to a monopoly of camphor, and as such were, in the opinion of His Majesty's Government, an infringement of Article XIV of the French Treaty of 1898. For a long time no steps were taken by the authorities to interfere with the exercise by British merchants of their Treaty privilege of freely purchasing native produce in the interior, but the reports from His Majesty's Consul show that such interference is now continually practised, to the injury not only of the interests of British merchants, but of the native producers.
In your Highness' reply to my earlier note, you stated that there was no monopoly because foreign merchants could purchase as much camphor as they pleased at market price from the Government Bureau. But it is of the essence of a monopoly that the holders of it become the only vendors, and there ceases to be a market price when there is no free sale and purchase by all persons who wish to sell or buy, and therefore on the Fukien authorities' own showing, their intention was to establish what the Treaty quoted specifically prohibits.
I have, therefore, the honour to request that instructions may be sent to the local authorities that they must not interfere with the freedom of British merchants to purchase camphor wherever they please from any person, and that the people in the country are not to be prohibited from selling camphor to them.
I avail, &c. (Signed) ERNEST SATOW.