TREATY BETWEEN FRANCE AND CHINA.
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Nanking, the French agents in China shall not deliver passports to their nationals for this city until the rebels shall have been expelled by the Imperial troops.
Art. VII.-French subjects and their families may establish themselves and trade or pursue their avocation in all security, and without bindrance of any kind, in the ports and cities enumerated in the preceding article.
They may travel freely between them if they are provided with passports, but it is expressly forbidden to them to trade elsewhere on the coast in search of clandestine markets, under pain of confiscation of both the ships and goods used in such operations, and this confiscation shall be for the benefit of the Chinese Govern- ment, who, however, before the seizure and confiscation can be legally pronounced, must advise the French Consul at the nearest port.
Art. VIII. -French subjects who wish to go to interior towns, or ports not open to foreign vessels, may do so in all security, on the express condition that they are provided with passports written in French and Chinese, legally delivered by the diplomatic agents or consuls of France in China and visel by the Chinese authorities.
In case of the loss of his passport, the French subject who cannot present it when it is legally required of him, shall, if the Chinese authorities of the place refuse him permission to remain a sufficient time to obtain another passport from the consul, be conducted to tie nearest consulate and shall not be maltreated or insulted. in any way.
As is stipulated in the former treaties, French subjects resident or sojourning in the ports open to foreign trade may travel without passports in their immediate neighbourhood and there pursue their occupations as freely as the natives, but they shall not pass certain limits which shall be agreed upon between the consul and the local authority. The French agents in China shall deliver passports to their nationals only for the places where the rebels are not established at the time the passport shall be demanded.
These passports shall be delivered by the French authorities caly to persons. who offer every desirable guarantee.
Art. IX. All changes made by common consent with one of the signatory powers of the treaties with China on the subject of amelioration of the tariff now in force, or which may hereafter be in force, as also all rights of customs, tonnage, importation, transit, and exportation, shall be immediately applicable to French trade and mer- chants by the mere fact of their being placed in execution.
Art. X.-Any French subject who, conformably to the stipulations of Article VI. of the present treaty, shall arrive at one of the ports open to foreign trade, may, whatever may be the length of his sojourn, rent houses and warehous s for the disposal of his merchandise, or lease land and himself build houses and warehouses. French subjects may, in the samo manner, establish churches, hospitals, religious bouses, schools, and cemeteries. To this end the local authori y, after having agreed with the Consul, shall desiguate the quarters most suitable for the residence of the French and the sites on which the above-mentioned structures may have place.
The terms of rents ard leases shall be freely discussed between the interested parties an 1 regulated, as far as possible, according to the average local rates.
The Chinese authorities shall prevent their nationals from exacting or requiring exorbitant prices, and the Consul on his side shall see that French subjects use no violence or constraint to force the consent of the proprietors. It is further under- stood that the number of houses and the extent of the ground to be assigned to French subjects in the ports open to foreign trade shall not be limited, and that they shall be determined according to the needs and convenience of the parties. If Chinese subjects injure or destroy French chutches or cemeteries the guilty parties shall be punished with all the rigour of the laws of the country.
Art. XI.-French subjects in the ports open to foreign trade may freely engage, on the terms agreed upon between the pa ties, or by the sole intervention of the Consul, compradores, interpreters, clerks, workmen, watermen, and servants. They shall also have the right of engaging teachers in order to learn to speak and write