Directory_and_Chronicle_1916 — Page 161

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TREATY BETWEEN FRANCE AND CHINA

Immediately after the reception of the consular note the Superintendent of Customs shall give a permit to open hatches. If the captain, before having received the said permit, shall have opened hatches and commenced to discharge, he may be fined 500 Dollars, and the goods discharged may be seized, the whole to the profit of the Chinese Government.

Art. XVIII.-French captains and merchants may hire whatever boats and lighters they please for the transport of goods and passengers, and the sum to be paid for such boats shall be settled between the parties themselves, without the intervention of the Chinese authority, and consequently without its guarantee in case of accident, fraud, or disappearance of the said boats. The number of these boats shall not be limited, nor shall a monopoly in respect either of the boats or of the carriage of merchandise by porters be granted to any one.

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Art. XIX. Whenever a French merchant shall have merchandise to load or discharge he shall first remit a detailed note of it to the Consul or Consular Agent, who will immediately charge a recognised interpreter to the Consulate to communicate it to the Superintendent of Customs. The latter shall at once deliver a permit for shipping or landing the goods. He will then proceed to the verification of the goods in such manner that there shall be no chance of loss to any party.

The French merchant must cause himself to be represented (if he does not prefer to attend himself) at the place of the verification by a person possessing the requisite knowledge to protect his interest at the time when the verification for the liquida- tion of the dues is made; otherwise any after claim will be null and of no effect.

With respect to goods subject to an ad valorem duty, if the merchant cannot agree with the Chinese officers as to their value, then each party shall call in two og three merchants to examine the goods, and the highest price which shall be offered by any of them shall be assumed as the value of the said goods.

Duties shall be charged on the net weight; the tare will therefore be deducted. If the French merchant cannot agree with the Chinese officer on the amount of tare, each party shall choose a certain number of chests and bales from among the goods respecting which there is a dispute; these shall be first weighed gross, then tared and the average tare of these shall be taken as the tare for all the others.

If during the course of verification any difficulty arises which cannot be settled, the French merchant may claim the intervention of the Consul, who will immediately bring the subject of dispute to the notice of the Superintendent of Customs, and both will endeavour to arrive at an amicable arrangement, but the claim must be made within twenty-four hours; otherwise it will not receive attention. So long as the result of the dispute remains pending, the Superintendent of Customs shall not enter the matter in his books, thus leaving every latitude for the examination and solution of the difficulty.

On goods imported which have sustained damage a reduction of duties propor- tionate to their depreciation shall be made. This shall be equitably determined, and, if necessary, in the manner above stipulated for the fixing of ad valorem duties.

Art. XX.-Any vessel having entered one of the ports of China, and which has not yet used the permit to open hatches mentioned in Article XIX., may within two days of arrival quit that port and proceed to another without having to pay either tonnage dues or Customs duties, but will discharge them ultimately in the port where sale of the goods is effected.

Art. XXI.-It is established by common consent that import duties shall be discharged by the captains or French merchants after the landing and verification of the goods. Export duties shall in the same manner be paid on the shipment of the goods. When all tonnage dues and Customs duties shall have been paid in full by a French vessel the Superintenent of Customs shall give a general aquittance, on the exhibition of which the Consul shall return the ship's papers to the captain and permit him to depart on his voyage. The Superintendent of Customs shall name one or several banks, which shall be authorised to receive the sum due by French merchants on account of the Government, and the receipts of these banks for all payments which have been made to them shall be considered as receipts of the