Tr is curious to note that the English Ambassador to India, two hundred years ago, had precisely the same difficulty with regard to transit dues, which we encounter in China at the present day. After a great deal of trouble, Sir Thomas Roe was told to draft a treaty for the Emperor's consideration, and here are its leading conditions.—There was to be perpetual peace between the King of Great Britain and the Emperor of Hindustan. The English were to trade wherever they pleased; their presents to the Padishah were to pass unopened; their goods were not to be sold under any pretence for thePadishah's use. They were to pay no transit duties, except an ad valorem duty of three-and-a-half per cent. at the port where the goods were shipped or landed; the Padishah was not to inherit the goods of deceased Englishmen, as he did of his own grandes. Governors or officials breaking the treaty were to be punished. In return, the English were to farnish the Padishah with everything he wanted, at reasonable rates; and were to help him against all his enemies.—Such treaty appeared unexceptionable to the English Envoy but it contained precisely the element of difficulty which has attended our commercial intercourse in China. It interfered with official squeezes, and excited the hostility of every Viceroy and Governor throughout the empire. All the influence that could be exercised was brought to bear successfully against it and Roo failed to get the Emperor's signature. He made matters worse, too, by his complaintsagainstthe proceedings of provincial Governors. The latter farmed out the revenues of the empire, and extorted money from their subjects by all kinds of cruelty and oppression. They were afraid lest Jehangir should discover their misdeeds; and regarded the English Envoy as an informer, The Government of China is somewhat more organised than was that of India in the days of Jehangir, but there is a remarkable similarity in the opposition which any measure of free trade encounters, at the hands of officials who tremble for their squeezes. The yield, for instance, of the much-debated Lekin Taxes is officially estimated at only Tls. 20,000,000. From what we see, however, of the operation of the tax, we may safely guess that. five times this sum is really collected. Tls. 20,000,000 would not cause the whole country to groan, as it is doing under the infliction and the dislike of the mandarins to have so elastic a source of income attacked, is easily comprehensible-—One captain of an English merchant ship trading to India, in the seventeenth century, took a delightfully simple course of overcoming the difficulty. Being pre. vented from trading at Surat, by the insolence and obstructiveness of the officials, he sailed to the Red Sea and stopped every Mogul ship that was going to or coming from Mocha. Ho made the Moguls on board sell him all their merchandise, and take English merchandise in exchange at the market rates which prevailed at Surat. Nothing could be more simple; only the opera. tion would have to be carried on in the creeks, instead of on the high sea, in China. If we stopped all the silk boats, for instance, at the Namtow barrier, and took over the sill at London rates, instead of buying it at half-a-crown a pound over these Shanghai; compelling the owners to take payment in Manchester goods ut the laying down cost, instead of buying them at auction at considerably less than their real value,—wo should have the pleasure of doing' business without actual loss, Pending this or some other mode of pressure, we may be sure the mandarins will try to evade any conditions we may impose; and Sir Thomas Wade's reminder to Prince Kung, that the British Government' has a measure of retaliation in its hands, will be continually needed to restrain their exactions within rea= sonable bounds. Even apart from the question of excessive taxes, the 2} per cent. transit duty,- in itself, must be obnoxious to the officials.
It places the transit tax in the hands of a department accountable to Peking, instead of Leaving each province to collect its fees on the goods as they pass; and the constant inclination of the officials will be to levy the customary barrier dues in addition to the 24 per cent. paid at the outset, and of sharing in which they fool somewhat uncertain. By constant complaint and steady pressure, we have succeeded in checking this tendency, and in gaining a certain amount of recognition for transit passes. But we shall still have to contend against the hostility of the Governors which Sir Thomas Roe encountered in India, and shall have to keep up the pressure and the threats in order to maintain our point.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.