IV. CHINESE EXPORTS.
Efforts of the consuls to stimulate trade—Alcock's work at Foochow—His despatches—Exhibition of 1851—Exhibits of Chinese produce sent by Alcock.
VILLAGE ON THE CANALS.
The continuous efforts made by the consuls in the first decade after the treaty to stimulate the action of foreign merchants in laying hold of all the opportunities offered to them for extending their connections with the Chinese trade ought not to be passed over without notice. It was the burden of Consul Alcock's labours while in Foochow to gather information from every source, to digest it as well as he was able, and to lay it before his countrymen; and if he, in his despatches to the plenipotentiary, sometimes reflected on what seemed to him the apathy and want of enterprise of the merchants, that must be set down to a laudable zeal to make his office fruitful of benefit to his country. The same spirit animated his proceedings in Shanghai. The demand made for exhibits for the Great Exhibition of 1851 found Mr Alcock and his lieutenant Parkes eager to supply samples of Chinese products of every kind likely to be of commercial interest. On applying to the mercantile community of Shanghai for their co-operation in collecting materials, he found them not over-sanguine as to the results of such an effort, and in his despatch of December 1850 to the plenipotentiary he remarks that "the British and foreign residents in Shanghai appeared to feel that the impossibility of gaining access to the great seats of manufacture or the producing districts for raw material placed them in too disadvantageous a position to do justice either to themselves or the resources of the empire, which could only be very inadequately represented, and in a way more calculated to mislead than instruct." "The conclusion," he goes on to say, "at which the mercantile community has arrived has gone far to paralyse all exertion on my part." Nevertheless, with the restricted means at his disposal, he set to work to collect specimens of Chinese produce and industry and to transmit them to the Board of Trade for the use of the Commissioners. Of objects of art he sent a great variety in bronze, inlaid wood, porcelain, soapstone, and enamels, and the fancy articles which have since acquired such great reputation in the world that dealers in European and American capitals send out commissions every year to make extensive purchases. Colours used by the Chinese for dyeing purposes in twenty shades of blue, silk brocades, and many valuable products of the Chinese looms, were well represented, and the commoner utensils, such as scissors, needles, and razors, some of which were within the last few years specially recommended in consular reports to the notice of English manufacturers, as if the suggestion were made for the first time. Of raw material, samples were sent of hemp, indigo, and many other natural products; and when it is considered how eager the British mercantile community appeared to be to increase their importation of Chinese produce—be it tea, silk, or any other commodity—in order to balance the export trade, it is interesting to observe that in those early days a number of articles of export were described and classified, with an account of the districts of their origin, which have only taken their place in the list of exports from China within the last twenty years or so. These were sheep's wool of six different descriptions, and camels' hair, which are now so extensively dealt in at the northern ports of China. Perhaps these articles were not seen in bulk by foreigners until after the opening of the new ports in 1861, and it is worthy of remark that even after this discovery, and sundry experimental shipments, many years elapsed before the special products of Northern China became recognised articles of foreign trade. These now include straw plait, sheep's wool, goats' wools, goats' skins, dogs' skins, camels' hair, horses' tails, pigs' bristles, and a number of other articles of export which might perfectly well have been brought to the foreign market of Shanghai even before the opening of the northern ports. What was wanted was the knowledge that such products were procurable and the organisation of a market for their disposal in China, in Europe, and the United States. To stimulate inquiry into these matters was an object of the consular reports of the early days, and the fact that the seed then sown seemed to have been buried in sterile soil for thirty years affords a reasonable prospect that from the more advantageous basis on which commercial men now stand still larger developments of international commerce may be reserved to future adventurers.
V. BRITISH EXPORTS.
Slow increase—Turn of the scale by the Shanghai silk trade—Consequent inflow of silver to China—Alcock's comment on the Report of Select Committee—His grasp of the true state of affairs.
This department of trade presents little else but a record of very slow improvement, with some rather violent fluctuations due to obvious and temporary causes. In the first year after the treaty of Nanking the value of shipments to China from the United Kingdom was £1,500,000; in 1852, £2,500,000; in 1861, £4,500,000, decreasing in 1862 to £2,300,000, and rising in 1863 to £3,000,000; after which period it steadily increased to £7,000,000, at which it has practically remained, with the exception of two or three years between 1885 and 1891, when it rose to £9,000,000.
The theory of the merchants who gave evidence before the Committee of 1847, that an increase in the exports from China was all that was needed to enable the Chinese to purchase larger quantities of manufactured goods, has by no means been borne out by the subsequent course of trade. For although the Chinese exports have been greatly extended since then, that of silk alone having more than sufficed to pay for the whole of the imports from abroad, there has been no corresponding increase in the volume of these importations. What happened was merely this, that the drain of silver from China, which was deplored on all sides up till about 1853, was converted into a steady annual inflow of silver to China.[25] Consul Alcock, having been requested by her Majesty's chief superintendent of trade to make his comments on the Report of the Select Committee, dealt comprehensively with the whole question of the trade between Europe, India, and China, and evinced a wider grasp of the true state of the case than the London merchants had done. In a despatch dated March 23, 1848, the following passages occur:—