218
TREATY BETWEEN FRANCE AND CHINA.
Chinese Government. These payments may be made in ingots or in foreign money the relative value of which to sycee shall be determined by agreement between the Consul or Consular agent and the Superintendout of the Customs in the different ports, according to time, place, and circumstances.
Art. XXIÏ.—*After the exp`ration of the two days named in Art. XX., and tefore proceeding to discharge her cargo, every vessel s all pay tonnage-dues accord- ing to the following scale:-Vessels of cne hundred and fifty tons and upwards at the rate of four mace per ton; vessels of less than one hundred and fifty tous mea- surement at the rate of one mace per ton.
Any vessel clearing from any of the open ports of China for any other of the open ports, or trading between Chiva and such ports in Cocbir-China as belong to France, or any port in Japan, shall be entitled, on application of the master, to a spec al certificate from the Superintendent of Customs, on exhibition of which the said vessel shall be exempted from all further payment of tornage-dues in any open port of China for a period of four months, to be reckoned from the date of her port-clearance; but after the expiration of four u.onths she shall be required to pay tonnage-dues again.
Small French vessels and boats of every class, whether with or without sails, shall be reckoned as coming within the category of vessels of one hundred and fifty tons and under, and shall pay tonnage dues at the rate of one mace per ton once in every four months.
Nat ve craft chartered by French merchants shall in like manner pay tonuage- dues once in every four months.
Art. XXIII.-All Freuch goods, after having discharged the Customs duties according to the tariff in one of the ports of China, may be transported into the interior without being subjected to any further charge except the transit dues according to the amended scale now in force, which dues shall not be augmented in the future.
If the Chinese Customs Agents, contrary to the tenour of the present Treaty, make illegal exactions or levy higher dues, they shall be punished according to the laws of the empire.
Art. XXIV.-Any French vessel entered at one of the ports open to foreign trade and wishing to discharge only a part of its goods there, shall pay Customs dues only for the part discharged; it may transport the remainder of its cargo to another port and sell it there. The duty shall then be paid.
French subjects, having pad in one port the duties on their goods, wishing to re-export them and send hem for sale to another port, shall noti y the Consul or Consular Agent. The latter shall inform the Superintendent of Customs, who, after having verified the identity of the goods and the perf et integrity of the packages, shall send to the claimants a declaration attesting that the duties on the said goods have been paid. Provided with this declaration the French merchants on their arrival at the other port shall only have to present it through the medium of the Consul or Superintendent of Customs, who will deliver for this part of the cargo, without deduction or charge, a permit for discharge free of duty; but if the authorities discover fraud or anything contraband amongst the goods so re-exported, these shall be, after verification, confiscated to the profit of the Chinese Government.
Art. XXV.-Trai shipment of goods shall take place only by special permission and in case of urgency; if it be indispensable to effect this operation the Consul shall be referred to, who will deliver a certificate, on view of which the transhipment shall be authorised by the Superintendent of Customs. The latter may always delegate an employé of his administration to be present.
Every unauthorised transhipment, except in case of peril by delay, will entail the coufiscation, to the profit of the Chinese Government, of the whole of the goods illicitly transhipped.
Art. XXVI.-In each of the ports open to foreign trade the Superintendent of Customs shall receive for himself, and hill deposit at the French Consulate, legal
* Substituted for the original article in 1865.
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