At the general meeting of the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society on Tuesday evening, the 29th ult., a paper was read by Dr. F. Birth On the Hoppo-book of 1753. ® manuscript account, written over a hundred years ayo, regarding th taxation of trade at Canton, ti ly rt then officially open to foreign commerce, Birth had procured this indeed contains quite a treasure formation, hitherto unknown, bea upon facts connected with the old factory trade, from an Amsterdam antiquarian firm, in whose catalogue of rare books and manuscripts it was announced as Hoppo-book, an explanation of the Custom howse books, translated anna 1708 with the manner of settling the duties on all goods imported and exported at the port of Canton, 'M.S. Avec quantity de marques et caracteres chinois." Being interested in the subject he wrote for the hok and, having ceeded in getting it, was to lay it before the Society.
ipt written on old Dutch paper, English spelt as words were spelt towards the close of the I-st century. Che writer apparently took some trouble in writing the, but every now and then falls back ince the "ye" an explana booke.""
They theow considerable light on th method followed then (in 1753) by authorities in levying duties upon ship; and goods, and make up a most wale sup) tu the accounts of factory trade contained in the first volume of Sir John Davies' "China and the Chinese" and O: beck's voyage toChins. 1t appears from thi account which, being anonymous, must be surmised to have been written by some factory merchant for the information of his constituents at home, that five kinds of taxes were then levied on fureigu trade, viz 1.—An Import Duty, payable on morchandise imported by " fixed Tariff, 2—dn Export Duty, payable on all exports. irrespective of origin (ie., ineludis ign goods re-exported to other say to Ningpo, to lace foreign ships resorted und exceptional circumstances); and consisting ofa Tariff charge plus a six per cent ad valorem duty.
As regards the Import and Export duties leviable upon merchandize, it is shown thal in force for Imports a Exports silke was first draughted at the very beginning of the European trade to China." It was finished, ne it stood in 1753, during the 26th year of Kang-hsi, ie, A.1. 1687. The grant Emperor ordered that it should never be altered and that ne addition should ever be made in it; it was therefore called Eh-éug-hsiang Tet the book of true and fixed duties," as it is tr ted in the ipt. Great ince nce was, d by new articles appearing on the market; "a grant variety of different goods and toys was brought every year." How could duty be charged nyon them if they were not allow. ed to appear in the tariff? The Canton authorities, with permission of the Board of Finances in Peking, then invented an jous plan of making a sort of com-with the defunct Emperor's will, introduced what they called a Com: parative Tariff," Pi-lei,—the Book of parison" of our manuscript. This ff contained the names of all the articles upon which duty was leviable, but which were not enumerated in Kang-hei Tariff; instead of fixing a duty for them, however, each item was "compared " to in the original list by either multiplica-'Thus of Largo Foreign one was held to be equal to one scope; of amall muskets four went to Telescope in point of duty, A pair of issers paid duty as a pair of apvctactos, "Spectacles" were also the official head under which duty was charged on a set of foreign knives and forks, and a great variety Toxport charges, Exports had in addition to pay six per cout ad valorem. It is very probable that ad valorem gave rise to ax much difference of ion xt those times at Canton as they ulti 1y therefrom were removed by now-a-days in all countries. Phe diffi-
the ini Value Tariff, ion," Ku-chia.
"valour officielle" as opposed to the valeur commerciale" made use of in the trade statistics of sevoral European countries. They wore not aube ject to the fluctuations of the market, but wore fixed ones for ever. We must assume that the prices conti i values appended to manuscript were ab the time of ite b ug framed, based upon the actual condition of the market, though sume of ates there given strike us now as almost incredibly low. We should not forget, however, that money hind quite a different value even in England " hundred years ago, and that the value of commodities may have been lower atill in the Far East, We are asished to read that in 1785 picul of valued at Tls. 100, one of Ton 8; that White Sugar was worth Tls. 1.50, Brown Sugar is 1, Sugar Candy 'Tis, 2.50; Riubarb Tis, ical, Musk 'Tis.' 1.50 and Opi 'a-pien) only 6 mace per catty. value of a chest of opium would, therefore, have amounted: to not quite © hundred dollars. The existence of opium as an article of trade xt Canton is certainly beyond doubt; opium is also mentioned in Kang-hsi's Tariff of 1687, and there a duty of 3 candareen por catty, constituting exactly six per cent. of the fixed value appearing in the Kuchia
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.