This confidential official correspondence,[19] carried on for a number of years, constitutes a natural introduction to the chapter of history which was about to open. In the transactions which led to a second rupture with China Consul Alcock had personally no part, for he was on leave in England, but there also his voice was heard in the discussion of the causes and objects of the war.
In a series of letters to the press, during 1857-58, commenting on the progress of events, Mr Alcock endeavoured to keep the British public informed of what was transpiring in China, the reasons for it, and the probable consequences. These letters were republished in pamphlet form, of course anonymously.
CHAPTER XI.
TRADE UNDER THE TREATY OF NANKING.
Trade the sole motive in all British and American dealings with China—Simplicity of this trade—Chief staple imports and exports—Data for any review of Chinese trade—Mutual alarm caused by excess of imports—Peculiar conditions of British trade—Entailing a loss of over 30 per cent, yet steadily maintained—System of barter—Consequent impossibility of clear accounts—And ignorance of position at any given moment—Trade also hampered by traditions of the East India Company—Such as that of keeping large stores on hand—Gradual improvement on these methods—Advantages of landed investment in China—Perceived and acted on by the Jesuits—And later by foreign merchants—The American trade—Similarity of currency—Excess of Chinese exports met by shipments of specie—And later by credits on London banks.
Whatever may be said of that of other nations, the intercourse of Great Britain and the United States with China, from the earliest period to the latest, whether in peace or war, has had no other object than trade between the nations, and therefore all the steps in that intercourse must be judged in their relation to the promotion of international commerce. War and diplomacy, geographical exploration and reforms, even literary researches and mutual instruction, being all ancillary to the main purpose, it seems fitting to consider as briefly as may be what manner of thing it was which set, and still keeps, all these auxiliary forces in motion.
From its first introduction till now one feature has characterised the Chinese foreign trade, and that is its simplicity. Both on the export and the import side a few staple commodities have made up its whole volume, and in this respect the statistics of to-day differ but little from those of fifty years ago. The leading Chinese imports at the conclusion of the first war were: From India, opium and raw cotton, to which has been added, since the development of steam factories, cotton yarn. From England, plain bleached and unbleached cotton goods, cotton yarn, some descriptions of woollens, iron and lead, account for nearly the whole value. The trade from the United States and the continent of Europe in those days did not greatly affect the general aggregate. The exports of Chinese produce were at the period in question almost confined to the one article—tea. Subsequently silk grew into importance, and soon exceeded in value the great speciality of China. Rhubarb was a commodity on which, next to tea, the Chinese affected to lay much stress, on the ground that foreigners were dependent upon it for the preservation of their health, and that stopping the supply might offer an easy means of coercing them. But the article never assumed any important commercial value. Sugar, camphor, and matting were also among the exports, the last named being much in demand in the United States. It is only of recent years, however, that anything like assorted cargoes of produce have been sent away from the Chinese ports. The trade has passed through many vicissitudes, has had its periodical ebb and flow, but has on the whole been prosaically progressive. And this has been especially the case with the imports of British and other Western produce.
It would be instructive to review the circumstances of the Chinese trade at successive stages of its progress, and to note the grievances of merchants and manufacturers at different epochs and the obstacles to commercial development as they were felt from time to time. It would be more interesting to do this were it possible to discriminate between permanent causes and temporary accidents. But it is not always what is of the most lasting importance that makes the strongest impression upon those who are actively engaged in the struggle for life. The trader does not greatly differ from the world at large in his love of a whipping-boy—that is to say, in the common tendency to attribute mischances to objective rather than to subjective causes. Prosperity, like good health, is, to those who enjoy it, its own sufficient explanation, the normal reward of the merit each one takes to himself as a matter of course. Adversity, on the other hand, is assigned to demonic origin, its victims being martyrs to the powers of nature or the hostile combinations of men. For these reasons it would be as difficult to gather from their own accounts what were the real helps and what the real hindrances to the traders' progress, as to draw general conclusions on the state of agriculture from conversations with working farmers. The commercial circular is a familiar product of the modern era of open trade. It undertakes to record the actual state of markets and to give the reasons why they are not otherwise. If one were to circumnavigate the globe and compare the ordinary run of these reports issuing from the great emporia, one feature would be found common to them all—it is the bogy. Everything would be for the best—but for certain adverse influences. It may be the vagaries of some Finance Minister or Tariff Commission, the restraint of princes, war, pestilence, or famine—inundations here and droughts there; but a something there must always be to explain away the moral accountability of the individual traders, manufacturers, or planters. China and Japan have seldom been without such fatalistic obstacles to commerce. For many years the rebellion was the bête noire of merchants, then the mandarins, and smaller rebellions; the scarcity of specie at one period, at another the superabundance of cheap silver. In Burma the King of Ava stood for long as the root of all commercial evil. In Japan the Daimios and the currency served their turn. India is never without calamities sufficient to account for perhaps more than ever happens there. All such drawbacks, however, though real enough as far as they go, are never exhaustive, and seldom even reach to the core of the problem. They are as atmospheric phenomena, to be observed, taken advantage of, or provided against, and are extremely interesting to the individuals immediately affected by them. But as regards the general course of trade, such incidents are but as storms on the surface of the deep oceanic currents: it is the onward sweep of the great volume of traffic that alone possesses public interest. Of the circumstances which influence the course and direction of that beneficent current a collation of the utterances of traders would yield but a refracted account. So that in order to appreciate the progress of commerce we have to fall back on the unadorned columns of statistical tables, which themselves leave something to be desired on the score of completeness.[20]
With regard to certain periods of the China trade we have rather full data, as, for instance, in the decade following the war, when the working of the trade exercised the minds both of British merchants and of their Government in a degree which has scarcely been equalled since. The same may be predicated of the Chinese Government also, and, as has been observed in a previous chapter, it was an interesting coincidence that during that critical period it was the self-same grievance that pressed on both sides—namely, the insufficiency of the Chinese exported produce to pay for the goods imported. The effect of this on the Chinese Government was to excite unfeigned alarm at the steady drain of silver required to pay for the excess of their imports. On the British side the grievance came home to the manufacturers in the form of the incapacity of the Chinese to take off an adequate quantity of the products of English looms. The remedy proposed from the two sides was thoroughly characteristic of their respective traditions. On the Chinese side it was negative, obstructive, prohibitory, and absolutely vain. On the British side the proposal was positive, expansive, and in accord with the spirit of modern commerce. The Chinese remedy was to forbid the export of silver and the import of opium, which, being the article in most urgent demand, was usually paid for in bullion or in coined dollars. The English remedy was to stimulate the export of Chinese produce. But here a paradox stands in the way of a clear perception of the position. The British trade was being carried on at a loss, which some of the merchants estimated at 33 per cent on the round venture. That is to say, manufactured goods were sold in China at a loss of 15 to 20 per cent, and the proceeds, being invested in Chinese produce, realised a further loss on sale in England of 17 or 20 per cent.
To account for this unremunerative trade being carried on voluntarily year after year, it is necessary to remember the great distance of the two markets in the days before the introduction of steam and the shortening of the voyage by the piercing of the Suez Canal. We have to allow also for the gambling or speculative element which animates all commerce, and the "hope-on-hope-ever" spirit without which no distant adventure would ever be undertaken. The rationale of the phenomenon was reduced to a very simple expression by Mr Gregson, who, when asked by the Committee of the House of Commons if he could explain "the singular proceeding of continuing the trade for a series of years with perpetual losses on it," replied: "The manufacturers reason that as the losses have been considerable the exports will fall off, and therefore they may export again. They are generally deceived, because their neighbours taking the same view, the exports are kept up and the loss continues."