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because the withdrawal of other foreign Powers, which point, it was hoped, might one day be attained, would deprive England of an argument which I have used, I need hardly say in perfect good faith, in favour of a satisfactory settlement of the question of taxation of the general trade inland. Although India is the chief field of opiùm production, it has been repeated ad nauseam, every Treaty Power, except the three above named, still keeps opium in its Tariff, and is free to claim for its merchants the right to inport, house, and sell opium, without payment of a penny inore than the Tariff duty of 30 taels.
It follows, therefore, that supposing the Chinese Government, unable to adopt any scheme, such as that I believe it to be at this moment considering, a scheme that would possibly make it independent of other Governments, it will fall back upon the joint collection of Tariff duty and li-kin by the Customs Inspectorate. It will then first have to agree with Her Majesty's Government as to the amount of the rate to be agreed to; then, to induce the other Treaty Powers, who have not deprived themselves of the right to trade in opium, to adhere to the arrangement accepted by Her Majesty's Government.
I was in hopes, when I telegraphed to your Lordship some time since, that the taxation of trade question was nearer solution than it proves to be. I shall not here say more. I do not despair of a solution, and its postponement notwithstanding, I feel I am no longer at liberty to defer transmission of the Report so frequently promised.
Assuming it to be as likely as not that a uniform rate will have to be named, it is on the point of its amount that I beg now to urge Iler Majesty's Government to decide. In the interest of the Indian Government 1 support a liberal rate. Believing that the Chinese Government, though entitled to more, never did really receive more than 40 taels l-kin a picul, while on some 20,000 piculs it received nothing at all, I considered that a rate of 50 taels on all opium brought to Hong Kong, the quality heretofore unaccounted for paying equally with the rest, would have been worth its acceptance. After two years' incessant debate, I have found 60 taels, the minimum offer which, in any responsible official's opinion it would be worth the while of the Chinese Government to close with. I believe that this would have been assented to last summer had I named it. But in face of the Grand Secretary Tso's sweeping propositions, and the averment, on the other side, that the opium revenue was estimated at 6,000,000 taels, less expense of collection and loss by smuggling, I declined to go above 50 tacls. The late addition to the 60 tael rate of 20, but since reduced to 10, taels, is a concession, I am persuaded, to the Grand Secretary Tso. It must be for Her Majesty's Government to decide which rate, if any, it will consent to. Sir Robert Hart contends that the drug will bear 90 taels li-kin, a total burden that is of 120 taels. I cannot suppose that so large au increase of taxation would not injuriously affect the revenue of India. I think 70 taels, nay 60 taels, a liberal rate, and the greater the benefit secured to the Chinese Government from this impost, the more secure, in my belief, will the revenue of India be from disturbing action on the part of the Chinese Government.
As regards the Chefoo Agreement, it must be borne in mind, as I have mentioned before, that the high rate proposed when this was signed was to have cleared opium at the port only. Inland of the port, it would be impossible to say how soon, a native Collectorate would have been free to fax it. It is at the port of import, of course, that its taxation is of chief importance. Of all merchandize opium is the most easily smuggled in small quantitics, but the larger consignments would not similarly escape any charge to which they might be liable on an inland route. The uniform rate now proposed once paid, the Tsung-li Yamên is prepared to guarantee exemption of the drug from all further taxation of
any description.
The security for fulfilment of this promise appears to me very simple; an under- standing that, if it be not kept, we return at once to the conditions of the Treaty of 1858. I have not the slightest apprehension of a counter-movement; of a retaliatory interdict suddenly laid upon the trade. The Chinese Government knows that it would be utterly futile. On the other part, the power of diminishing the revenue, if faith were broken, is entirely in our hands, and the Chinese Government, I feel sure, will not lightly cast away an increase of income, at the lowest, of from 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 taels.
Whatever arrangement be eventually consented to will, I presume, take the place of that recommended in the Chefoo Agreement. This, I trust, may then be formally ratified.
It will be observed that I have made no reference to the possible extinction of the interest of the Indian Government in the opium trade within a term of years. I shall submit what I bave to say to your Lordship on this subject in the following despatch.
I have, &c.
THOMAS FRANCIS WADE.
(Signed)
(No. 41.)
My Lord,
No. 79.
Sir T. Wade to Earl Granville.--(Received August 3.)
Peking, June 8, 1882. 1 HAVE the honour to inclose copies of my correspondence with the Grand Secretary Tso, referred to in my despatch No. 38 of the 3rd instant, which by mistake I had not carried with me to Tien-tsin.
Sir,
I have, &c.
(Signed)
THOMAS FRANCIS WADE.
Inclosure 1 in No. 79.
Sir T. Wade to Grand Secretary Tso.
Peking, August 2, 1881. IHASTEN to acknowledge your Excellency's reply of 1st instant to my note of the 23rd July.
It appears to me that I must have failed to make my meaning perfectly clear to your Excellency when we met at the Tsung-li Yamêu, and that I have been equally unsuccessful in the explanations submitted to your Excellency in the note to which I have now received your reply.
But I will not take up more of your Excellency's time. My chief object in writing was to prove to you that I had not been guilty of shifting my ground (" fan fu") as the Memorial addressed to the throne in your Excellency's single name, I regretted to observe, had represented.
Sir,
(Signed)
Inclosure 2 in No. 79.
THOMAS FRANCIS WADE.
Sir T. Wade to Grand Secretary Tso.
Peking, July 23, 1881. IN the Shen Pao" newspaper published at Shanghae on the 29th June last, a paper is printed which purports to be a Memorial laid before the throne by your Excellency on the subject of opiumi taxation, in the course of which reference is made to myself in the following words:-
"Your servant having been honoured by the command of your Majesty to take cognizance of foreign affairs, was of course not free to decline the responsibility, and when (in discharge of it) be received the British Minister Wei T'o-ma (Thomas Wade), he discussed with him the question of raising the Tariff duty and li-kin excise upon opium, with a view to diminishing the taste for it. Nor had Thomas Wade any objection to make thereto. But when Li Hung-chang arrived, your servant and he further discussed the two occasions; Li Hung-chang having besides one separate conference with him alone; and at these conferences Thomas Wade maintained There was a considerable change in his opinions at variance with those of your servants. language (or he retracted much), and with reference to the augmentation of the price of opium, he showed as much irritation as if the change were something to be deplored.
matter with Thomas Wade on
"Were your servants to have agreed to a proposition he subsequently made that EG taels a chest should be the fixed amount (of opium taxation), this would bave added little (to the present cost of trading), and not only would it have effected nothing towards diminishing the appetite for it, but by increasing the trade in foreign opium, it would have expanded the area of its distribution, and would have supplied an excuse for the cultivation of the poppy in the interior, and the trade in native opium. Great inconvenience also would have attended the additional levy of the li-kin.
"His scheme, therefore, while its proper object, namely, the increase of the duty and li-kin would be in great part defeated, being also otherwise impracticable."
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As the "Shên Pao cannot be regarded like the "Peking Gazette as a publication possessing official authority, it is, of course, possible that the paper to which I am directing attention may not be genuine. If this be the case, it will be my duty to apologize for having troubled your Excellency upon the subject. If the paper be genuine, I shall have done no harm by remarking that the statement of what has fallen from me on the subject.
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