Chapter XXI: The Revision of the Treaty (2)

The question naturally suggested by these remarks--why a task involving enormous labour, of which only negative results were to be expected, was entered upon at all at such an inopportune moment--remains unanswered.

It would be insufferably tedious, and of no practical utility, to track the windings of a maze leading nowhere, for the revised treaty was never ratified. But the labours of two whole years could not but leave landmarks to guide succeeding travellers over the same ground. It could not be but that with so much beating of the bushes the game would be started, if not brought to bag. It was a reconnaissance in force which, for the first time, compelled the respective parties to the struggle to reveal their true character and intentions. Such a discovery was perhaps not too dearly bought by the time and trouble expended on it.

The first definite step in the process of revision was the nomination of a mixed commission of British and Chinese "to devise means of securing a more prompt redress of commercial grievances." The members were Mr Fraser, second secretary to the British Legation; Mr Hart, Inspector-General of Customs; and two secretaries of the Tsungli-Yamên--a heavy preponderance on the Chinese side of the question. To the same commission was added another British member, Mr Adkins. And here it is not impertinent to observe that the absence of both the Chinese secretary, Mr Wade, and the acting Chinese secretary, Mr Brown, left the Legation in a condition too crippled to engage on work which would have taxed its full strength. The members of the commission held many sittings, reporting proceedings from time to time to their respective principals, the Tsungli-Yamên and the British Minister.

It needs no great effort of imagination to divine, in a body thus composed, whose would be the dominant voice. Mr Hart conducted the proceedings throughout. The discussion had not gone far when it was found hopeless to revise the provisions of the treaty in any sense compatible with progress or freer intercourse; and the dangerous questions which had caused the Government so much anxiety, and which had inspired both the Burlingame mission and the various secret memorials, being thus happily ruled outside the controversy, the Chinese Ministers seem to have given themselves no further concern about the revision. This distant attitude of theirs was severely commented on by a contemporary writer in 'Fraser's Magazine,' who said:--

After ten years of conciliatory blandishments on our part, the
high Chinese authorities had so far disobeyed the spirit of the
treaty that, although they had not actually prevented our Minister
from corresponding and visiting with them, yet they had had the
audacity to render all such intercourse absolutely nugatory,
and had constrained him, after a long and successful diplomatic
career, to descend to the extremely humiliating position of
treating with them indirectly through the medium of Mr R. Hart.

As, however, the proceedings became focussed on a tariff revision destined to add to the duty receipts, a "collector of revenue wanting money," as Mr Hart described himself, was the most fitting negotiator, and the Chinese ministers were well pleased to leave him free to make his own bargain, so long as it yielded that result.

To give colour to the Chinese demand for higher duties a bold formula was resorted to, and supported by equally bold reasoning. The expedient was a rearrangement of the method of collection of inland dues on foreign merchandise, which was then, as it continues to be, the great bone of contention between foreign traders and the Chinese authorities. The treaties conferred on merchants the right of compounding for all inland taxation of their merchandise by a single payment at the port of entry; but the practices of the Chinese officials had rendered the privilege a nullity. In the new negotiations Mr Hart, on the part of the Chinese, took the high ground of maintaining, with subtle dialectic, that the protection which foreigners claimed was not in fact given by the treaties. So strongly did the Chinese entrench themselves in this contention, that heavy artillery was required to dislodge them. "Could any negotiators be so dull or incompetent," wrote Sir R. Alcock in reply, "as to sign a treaty of commerce with an Eastern potentate, extorted at the point of the bayonet, and leave this unlimited power in his hands to turn against us the next moment, or whenever he pleased, and nullify all that had been stipulated, destroying the trade for which alone war had been made?" Defeated in argument, the Chinese next begged that what they could not claim as a right might yet be accorded to them as a favour, thus copying the tactics of the Japanese in an analogous case.

As this proved to be the crux of the whole transaction, the rock on which the convention eventually split, it is useful to consider how the subject was treated in the negotiations. The treaties of Nanking, 1842, and of Tientsin, 1858, provided for the transit of British goods throughout the empire on payment of a fixed charge. But in securing exemption from arbitrary imposts in the interior, the treaty of Nanking signally failed; that of Tientsin had proved equally ineffective, and why? From inherent difficulties in the nature of things--obstacles absolutely insuperable so long as the country remained under the same organic conditions. Such were the propositions with which the British Minister entered upon the discussion of the subject; and as no proposal was made for changing the organic conditions of the empire, the prospect of obtaining a satisfactory fulfilment of those treaty provisions did not seem very encouraging.

But then a suggestion, apparently emanating from Consul Robertson at Canton, was made for simplifying the problem by doing away with the option which had been reserved in the treaties for foreign merchants, either to pay the commutation at the port of landing, or to allow their goods to run the gantlet of the Chinese customs stations. Instead of this, it was suggested that a single compulsory payment, amounting to half the import tariff, might be levied on the landing of the goods, which should thereafter be freed from all other imposts throughout the empire. It was not unnatural that a "collector of revenue" should appropriate this conception, and introduce it into the revised treaty; but then the doubt immediately arose on the other side, whether the promised exemption would be any more of a reality than it had been under the existing _régime_. If the difficulties in the way of fulfilling the stipulation in the treaty of Tientsin and Nanking were really insuperable, would they now disappear merely because the Chinese Government received an increased import duty? In considering Mr Hart's proposal, "the question would be," according to Sir Rutherford Alcock, "Could we obtain a sufficient guarantee that such additional import due would effectually exempt British goods from all other dues, local, provincial, and what not?" And again, "Security for exemption from all but the fixed 2½ per cent was the one question on which depended the value of any revision."

A necessary condition of any successful treaty was the assent of all the other Powers to its provisions, seeing that under their most-favoured-nation clauses any one of them by holding aloof could render the treaty inoperative. The various foreign representatives were therefore kept informed of the progress of negotiations. In this way their opinions were obtained from time to time as to the merits of the various proposals. On the subject of the compulsory payment of transit dues the opinions which the British Minister received from his colleagues were all unfavourable. They considered that some "additional guarantee would be necessary against failure, and as against security for additional losses which would be entailed upon the merchants." To give effect to the new proposals an edict was to be published acquainting all provincial officials with what had been agreed upon. But still the diplomatic body maintained "that nothing is really certain but the addition of 2½ per cent to the import duties. This will be rigorously exacted and paid; but whether the equivalent exemption from all other taxation will be obtained must be held doubtful, ... seeing that in the past the same provincial authorities have shown the most persistent disregard of treaty stipulations and proclamations." "Under such circumstances," Sir Rutherford adds, "it would seem reasonable that, during the first year at least, all amounts collected under the new arrangements ... should be carried to a separate account ... to meet claims for compensation." In the end, however, he saw reason to waive this proviso, to disregard the views of his colleagues, and to assent to the new impost, without any guarantee. Attempts to obtain concessions from the Chinese in the way of freer intercourse proved, as we have said, hopeless from the first. The renewal of the Chinese demand to establish a customs station in Hongkong--that "immense smuggling depot"--was refused on the British side; while the British request for recognition of Hongkong as a port of call for goods in transit to Canton was in like manner refused on the Chinese side, because it "would give the place a respectable name" as well as make it the "great emporium of the south." Hongkong, it is fair to remember, was, not unnaturally, odious in the eyes of the Chinese. The more prosperous the colony became, the more they hated it; and the more patriotic among them--as, for instance, the Minister Wênsiang--detested it the most.

The ruling factor in eliminating all measures of progress from the negotiations and reducing the whole to a customs question was Mr Burlingame.

After the arrival of the mission to Washington [wrote Sir
Rutherford on February 27, 1869] the hopes which the signature
of the additional articles was calculated to excite undoubtedly
exercise a very prejudicial effect on my efforts.... With Mr
Burlingame's enthusiastic reception, and the prompt signature
of the convention by which the United States Government pledged
itself to leave China free to adopt or reject all such innovations
and internal improvements, and even to use its influence with
other Powers for the same end, they gained precisely the assurance
they wanted.... From that moment further progress or successful
negotiation became impossible.

He added in a subsequent despatch to Lord Clarendon:--

One result stands out more clearly than any other, and it is this:
what we have gained by the last year's preliminary negotiations is
not likely to be withdrawn. But if it was difficult to negotiate
for large concessions before the assurance authoritatively given
by your lordship to Mr Burlingame, ... it is now out of the
question to hope for more than has already been conceded....
Strong in the assurances of two of the treaty Powers, ... it is
quite certain that no further progress can be made at present. It
simply remains for her Majesty's Government to determine whether
they will carry out the revision on the basis proposed and already
assented to by the Chinese Government, or defer the revision
altogether to some later period.

The provisional report of the negotiations having been submitted by the Foreign Office to the other treaty Powers for their opinion, most of them contented themselves with amicable generalities, the only definite criticism elicited being that of the North German Confederation. Going straight to the core of the matter, in May 1869, Count Bernstorff wrote as follows, basing his remarks upon the opinion of the German merchants:--

Although the advantages which are to be expected for trade in
general from the abolition of the "lekin taxes" would not be
too dearly bought by this extension of the transit duty to all
commodities, yet, on the other hand, the treaty Powers certainly
have the right of demanding the abolition of the taxes levied
contrary to treaty, even without giving anything in return,
and they might probably obtain this result by common action.
And then, moreover, it appears, from existing circumstances
in China, exceedingly questionable whether this tax, even if
abolished by imperial edict in consequence of a treaty, would not,
nevertheless, still be levied by the mandarins, although perhaps
in another shape, since now indeed they have their assignments
thereon.

Doubts on the part of the Foreign Office led to further correspondence backwards and forwards, closing with the following ambiguous despatch, dated 29th September, which was transmitted by telegram, a very slow process in those days:--

If you should not have concluded an arrangement before this
reaches you, her Majesty's Government think it would be better
to protract negotiations rather than accept now a limited
arrangement, which would be binding for so long a period as ten
years, and which would not comprise a satisfactory arrangement
respecting transit duties, and which might compromise the right
of her Majesty's Government to take part in the negotiations of
other Powers for a revision of their treaties.

Should you, however, have completed any arrangement, you may be
assured that the best view will be taken of it here.

The supplementary convention was, in fact, signed in October, and Sir Rutherford Alcock took his leave immediately after, visiting the Yangtze, Shanghai, Hongkong, and India on his way to Europe. At these places he explained in general terms the bearing of the treaty, the Indian Government being specially concerned in the increase of the Chinese import duty on opium, to which the trade generally were absolutely indifferent.

The supplementary convention was exhaustively reviewed by the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce in a memorial addressed to Lord Clarendon (December 31, 1869). To the practical view of the merchants the treaty consisted of three clauses: one making compulsory what had previously been optional--the payment of half the import duty in commutation of inland dues on foreign merchandise; one doubling the export duty on raw silk; and the third more than doubling the import duty on opium. Of these, the first alone was deemed important. The consideration offered by the Chinese Government for the compulsory payment--that they would frank imported goods through nine of the eighteen provinces of China--was not regarded as an equivalent; for the treaty of Tientsin contained the same undertaking without the geographical limitation, but it had not been fulfilled. The ground alleged for this non-observance of the existing treaty had been the existence of insurmountable obstacles in connection with provincial and imperial finance. These obstacles, the merchants observed, were "now assumed to have been suddenly overcome," an assumption which they considered illusory. The question of transit dues was not new to them: it had been threshed out on all sides during weary years; it was the recurrent topic of the day with them, as it was destined to continue to be for a generation longer; and the merchants could not therefore believe that the difficulties against which they had been hopelessly struggling were suddenly removed by magic. They were not shown how the revolution was to be effected. In short, "the conclusion," they said, "was irresistible, that to a very great extent the commutation of transit dues, which is made compulsory by the new treaty, will simply become an additional tax on trade without any return whatever; and that the provincial authorities will as heretofore tax goods in transit very much as they please, the treaty stipulation to the contrary notwithstanding,"--a conclusion supported by arguments which could not be refuted.

Sir Thomas Wade some years later expressed the same views as the merchants had done. "I doubted," he said, "the good faith of officials when breach of faith could only be established by the evidence of those subject to their authority and entirely in their power.... I have since found reason to believe that the control of taxation in the provinces is a matter of no small trouble to the Central Government as at present constituted, if indeed it be possible at all." Nevertheless, he adds, "I have found occasion to regret that the convention has not been allowed at least a term of probation." A term of probation was the alternative suggested by the merchants also, but it seems never to have received any consideration from the Foreign Office.

The representation which the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce based upon their review of the treaty was adopted by influential commercial bodies in England, who in a "monstrous deputation," as Mr Hammond called it, urged on the Secretary for Foreign Affairs the non-ratification of the treaty. The British Government gave way, not, as they candidly admitted, convinced by the reasoning, but overawed by the electoral pressure of the merchants; and the supplementary convention was allowed to fall through.

Thus ended the first attempt to negotiate a treaty with China as a perfectly free agent. The conclusion to be drawn not only from the negative result, but from the whole process of the negotiations--from the memorials from the provinces, and still more from the Privy Council, the six boards, and the censorates--is, as stated by Sir Rutherford Alcock in May 1869, "that the old spirit of arrogance of the days of Lin and Yeh is still in full vigour, and the assumption of superiority over the barbarian absolutely unmeasured. That the anti-foreign element amongst the official and educated classes has suffered no diminution whatever; that if some two or three leading men take a clearer view of the political situation, they are evidently without power to take action upon it; and so the vessel of State is allowed to drift whichever way the tide of prejudice and ignorance may set. There are still some documents," he added, "wanting to complete the series, especially the answer of Li Hung-chang and a second memorial of Tsêng Kwo-fan [p. 184 _seq._], which it would be desirable to obtain as showing the policy advocated by two of the most prominent men in the empire at this moment."

One sentence of Sir Rutherford Alcock sums up the case China _v._ the West: "Pressure, indeed, there must always be here if anything is to be achieved for the advancement of foreign interests and commerce. In one way or other, however we may disguise it, our position in China has been created by force--naked, physical force; and any intelligent policy to improve or maintain that position must still look to force in some form, latent or expressed, for the results." Whether the Western nations, singly or collectively, are justified in using their force for such a purpose is a question which is not affected by this plain statement of the case. That the policy of the Western Powers has been largely influenced by sentimental consideration towards China is true; but their action has never been consistent with their professions, and their oscillation between coercion and submission has led to disastrous consequences.

FOOTNOTE:

[15] He now knows better.