At the quarterly meeting of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, held on the 26th of October, Mr. Robert Barclay, President, in the chair, Mr, Archibald Little, who has had about 40 years' experience of China, gave an address on the extension of British trade with that country. The President, in introducing Mr. Little, said there was perhaps no man accessible to an audience in England who had the same practical knowledge and experience of China, It was to Mr. Little that the Blackburn Mission were indebted for a great part of the information they obtained with regard to China.
Mr. Little said he regarded it as a great honour to be allowed to address what he might venture to say was the leading Chamber of Commerce in England, 0 far, at any rate, as China was concerned. There was very little that was new to be said on the subject of the extension of British trade with China. Trade did not extend so fast as they would like to see it; at the same time there was no cause for despondency, oF to suppose that the Chinese would be able to do everything for themselves and dispense with Lvncashire goods, British trade with China had made Slight advance this last decade as compared with previous decades, though in the last two or three years the import of Manchester goods had been more or less stationary. Tt was of very great importance that everything possible should be done to encourage exports from China, for it was only with exports that the Chinese could pay for imports. He would go so far as to say that if they took care of the exports, imports would look after~themselves. The Chinese merchant was the most cautious individual in the world, and would not risk a dollar till he saw his way perfectly clear. This total absence of enterprise was the reason for the political collapse of the country. One great means of assisting and pushing trade was the opening of new ports. Directly a new port was opened the consumption of goods increased. The merchants of Shanghai, however, did not take much interest in the opening of new ports. The opening of a new port meant for them the opening of an expensive branch, more trouble, and doubtful profit for many years. But though the Govelopment of trade was slow ina new district, the import into Szechuan hed doubled since 1890, when Chungking was made a treaty port. It showed the results to be expected when obstructions were remoyed, even though goods had to be taken up 500 miles of river in junks, The province of Szechuan was, ashehad intimated, the richest and most prosperous in China, and if only the means of communication were made better the trade in English goods would increase sixfold, That western portion of China produced little or no cotton. It was therefore dependent on imported goods, and was willing to take our cations if it could get them at a moderate price as compared with silk. What, then, were the obstacles in the way of a rapid increase of trade? He would first speak of things which were often referred to as obstacles but which were not so. Consuls wrote very glibly in their reports that Englishmen were losing their trade because they were so high and mighty, too careless to look "ut for new paths and introduce new patterns; in a word, that they were too conservative, and that the manufacturers of Lancashire were wont to say: "The are my goods—take them or leave.them. There was no truth in that whatever, but he had read it in a dozen reports, and had argued it with consuls. (Hear, hear.) He submitted that it was absurd to suppose such " thing.. Was it likely that he, for example, as a merchant, sending out his native agents—and the Chinese was particularly fond of trade—who were paid a small salary and a commission on the sales, would not willingly supply them with the goods for which there was a demand? Ayain, this was what Messrs. Noel, Murray, and Ca., of Shanghai, said in one of their circulars: "Reverting to what we wrote last week with reference to the fruits of the Blackburn mission to China, there is a way by which the Lancashire trade with this country can be preserved, but it will require very powerful syndicates to effect the necessary changes, as it will involve a reform of the Manchester trade as present carried on. The most essential point is for the manufacturers to combine to do away with middlemen as soon as practicable and deal direct with the representatives of China houses, doing their own making-up, ticketing, packing, and shipping." ' His opinion was that manufacturers would gain nothing by attempting t" do the packing and ticketing for themselves. Now there were sufficient number of real obstacles to overcome without having imaginary ones Inid before them. The first great obstacle was the rudimentary nature of communication. The people were very poor. Hence if we wished to do more trade with them we must find means to cheapen the cost of transit and develop the export trade. It woald be an immense advantage if steam communication were opened up into the interior, both by road and river. The work might not pay just now, but profit would assuredly come in the long run, and we should in the meantime be occupying our spheres of -influence, The second obstacle was the internal transit taxes. "These charges were various, irregular, and often the cause of vexation and delay. In this connection Mr. Little had to complain that our consular representatives were not sufficiently alive to the interests of the British trader. They contrasted very unfavourably with those of France. In one instance he had paid a tax for five years under protest, but when it came to be imposed on a Frenchman it was abolished in five minutes through the intervention of the French Consul. He did not desire that we should adopt the domineering and bullying methods of the French or Russians, but he thought there wis a happy medium, and that the interests of English traders might be more effectually protected. A third great obstacle was found in the absence of any right to mine. The idea had hitherto been that we should treat the Chinese gently. Don't offend them, was the injunction, "don't push thins in time they will come round." The consequence had been that we had allowed France Russia, and Japan 10 come in and bring the house of cards about the Chinese ears, whereas if we had treated them like children and helped them to put their house in order, perchance they would not have been kicked and knocked about as they had been. (Hear, hear.)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.