CO129-147 - Public Offices - 1870 — Page 285

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Printed for the use of the Foreign Office. January 3, 1870.

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CONFIDENTIAL.

Sir R. Alcock to the Earl of Clarendon.—(Received December 27.)

(No. 130.) My Lord,

Peking, October 28, 1869. A SUPPLEMENTARY Convention to the Treaty of Tien-tsin was signed in quadruplicate on the 23rd instant by His Imperial Highness the Prince of Kung and the Ministers of the Yamên, as the Plenipotentiaries of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of China, and by me on the part of Her Majesty.

One of the four copies I have now the honour to inclose for ratification, should it be approved by Her Majesty's Government, as I trust, I believe it will be found to secure advantages far in advance of the objects contemplated in the XXVIIth Article of the Treaty. A revision of the Tariff and commercial articles is all that is there provided for; but the present Convention goes much beyond this, opening new ports, establishing bonded warehouses, giving the right of navigating the inland waters in foreign-owned vessels, of renting places for storage, and temporary residence in the interior; these are all innovations of great prospective importance. The Convention will also be found to have effected all that was contemplated as desirable by the Board of Trade in their Report of the 19th of May last, and otherwise to be in general conformity with the instructions conveyed in your Lordship's despatches Nos. 92 and 107, dated respectively the 21st of May and the 4th of June.

I shall best economize your Lordship's time, I believe, in reference to details and the bearing of the different articles by inclosing a copy, with the marginal notes attached to each Article, which Mr. Hart supplied at my request. This, taken with the inclosed copy of my explanatory despatch to M. de Rehfues, as the Doyen of the Corps Diplomatique, leaves me but little to add by way of explanation.

I look upon the arrangements entered into for the collection of transit dues and the total exemption of all foreign textile fabrics in the nine provinces in which are Treaty ports, as the most important advantage gained by the Convention, and if ratified, and carried into operation, I have very little doubt that the end proposed, a total exemption from such charges or exactions, will be fairly secured.

Of course this, and other stipulations, involves of necessity the concurrence of the other Treaty Powers, not only because a compulsory payment of the half-import duty at the time and place of importation has been substituted for the existing rule, which left it optional, but also from the fact that the Convention stipulates, in return for this, the reduction of duties on articles of foreign trade, and other considerable advantages. An increase in the duty on opium and on silk; the former to the amount of 2 per cent, ad valorem, and the latter a fraction over 1 per cent.

One part of the Convention cannot be taken, and the other rejected. It must be accepted or rejected by all the Treaty Powers, as a whole; and it is easy to see that there may be considerable difficulty in obtaining such a consensus of opinion as will be required to that end. France has always refused to be bound by any conditions attaching to concessions made to other Powers, while claiming,

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