3
FL
CHINA TRADE.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[35013]
No. 1.
[Octobin.]
SECTION 2,
50
Sir,
Board of Trade to Foreign Office.—(Received October 17.)
Board of Trade, October 15, 1906.
I AM directed by the Board of Trade to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 15th ultimo, transmitting copy of a despatch from His Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Peking, with inclosures, on the subject of the special trade privileges granted to the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company, with regard to the transport of brick tea from Foochow and Hankow to Tien-tsin and Kalgan.
With reference thereto the Board entirely concur in the view expressed by Mr. Carnegie, that he should not support Messrs. Butterfield and Swire's application of the 28th October, 1905, to the Imperial Maritime Customs at Tien-tsin. So far as they are aware, there is nothing in the Treaties concluded between China and other Powers to prevent the Chinese Government from levying a lower coast-trade duty on goods carried in Chinese ships than on similar goods carried in foreign ships, Article XXIV of the Treaty of 1858 with Great Britain in particular securing to British subjects not national, but only most-favoured-uation rights, whilst Article XIV of the Treaty of 1860 with France, which forbids the establishment of privileged commercial societies and coalitious for the exercise of a monopoly of trade, can, in their opinion, only be held to apply to such branches of trade as are actually open to foreigners, and not to the carriage of Chinese goods inland from a Trenty port to a place such as Kalgan, not open to trade. The right to convey goods inland, accorded by Treaty to British subjects, applies solely to British, and not to Chinese, goods, and in the Russian Laud Trade Regulation of the 24th February, 1881, to which allusion is made in the papers, it is expressly provided that, though Russian merchants may obtain a permit to export Chinese goods from Tien-tsin to Russia, overland viâ Kalgan, such goods may not be sold en route.
In view of this latter stipulation, and the fact that Messrs. Butterfield and Swire were desirous of conveying the tea to Kalgan for sale there, the Board are at a loss to understand the reply which Mr. Carnegie states was made by the Chinese Customs to Messrs. Butterfield and Swire, to the effect that such passes were granted to merchants of Russian nationality only.
I am, &c.
(Signed)
H. LLEWELLYN SMITH.
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