Directory_and_Chronicle_1864 — Page 337

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TREATY BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND CHINA.

Art. XXXVIII.-After receiving from the Consul the report in due form, the Superintendent of Customs shall grant the vessel a permit to open hatches. If the master shall open hatches, and begin to discharge any goods without such permis- sion, he shall be fined five hundred taels, and the goods discharged shall be confiscated wholly.

Årt. XXXIX. Any British merchant who has cargo to land or ship, must apply to the Superintendent of Customs for a special permit. Cargo landed or shipped without such permit, will be liable to confiscation.

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Art. XL. No transhipment from one vessel to another can be made without special permission, under pain of confiscation of the goods so transhipped.

Art. XLI.—When all dues and duties shall have been paid, the Superintendent of Customs shall give a port clearance, and the Consul shall then return the ship's papers, so that she may depart on her voyage.

Art. XLII.-With respect to articles subject, according to the Tariff, to an að valorem duty, if the British merchant cannot agree with the Chinese officer in affixing a value, then each party shall call two or three merchants to look at the goods, and the highest price at which any of these merchants would be willing to purchase them;' shall be assumed as the value of the goods.

Art. XLIII.-Duties shall be charged upon the net weight of each article, mak- ing a deduction for the tare weight of congee, &c. To fix the tare on any articles such as tea, if the British merchant cannot agree with the Custom-house officer, then each party shall choose so many chests out of every hundred, which being first weighed in gross, shall afterwards be tared, and the average tare upon these chests shall be assumed as the tare upon the whole; and upon this principle shall the tare be fixed upon all other goods and packages. If there should be any other points in dispute which cannot be settled, the British merchant may appeal to his Consul, who will communicate the particulars of the case to the Superintendent of Customs, that it may be equitably arranged. But the appeal must be made within twenty-four hours or it will not be attended to. While such points are still unsettled, the Superinten- dent of Customs shall postpone the insertion of the same in his books.

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Art. XLIV.-Upon all damaged goods a fair reduction of duty shall be allowed, proportionate to their deterioration. If any disputes arise, they shall be settled in the manner pointed out in the clause of this Treaty having reference to articles which pay duty ad valorem.

Art. XLV.-British merchants who may have imported merchandize into any of the open ports, and paid the duty thereon, if they desire to re-export the same, shall be entitled to make application to the Superintendent of Customs, who, in order to prevent fraud on the revenue, shall cause examination to be made by suitable officers, to see that the duties paid on such goods, as entered in the Custom-house books, correspond with the representation made, and that the goods remain with their original marks unchanged. He shall then make a memorandum on the port- clearance of the goods, and of the amount of duties paid, and deliver the same to the merchant; and shall also certify the facts to the officers of Customs of the other ports. All which being done, on the arrival in port of the vessel in which the goods are laden, everything being found on examination there to correspond, she shall be per- mitted to break bulk, and land the said goods, without being subject to the payment of any additional duty thereon. But if, on such examination, the Superintendent of Customs shall detect any fraud on the revenue in the case, then the goods shall bẻ subject to confiscation by the Chinese Government.

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British merchants desiring to re-export duty-paid imports to a foreign country, shall be entitled, on complying with the same conditions as in the case of re-exporta-

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