The three ports to be opened on the Yangtze stood on quite a different footing. They had not been named, and their opening was somewhat contingent on the position of the hostile forces then occupying the river-banks. The navigation, moreover, was absolutely unknown above Nanking, and it was left to Captain Sherard Osborn to explore the channel and to Lord Elgin to make a political reconnaissance at the same time in H.M.S. Furious, of which cruise Laurence Oliphant has left us such a delightful description. It was not, however, till 1861 that the great river was formally opened by Admiral Sir James Hope. Trade then at once burst upon the desolate scene like the blossoms of spring. On the admiral's voyage up to Hankow, on the 600 miles of stream scarcely a rag of sail was to be seen. Within three months the surface of the river was alive with Chinese craft of all sorts and sizes. The interior of China had for years been dammed up like a reservoir by the Taipings, so that when once tapped the stream of commerce gushed out, much beyond the capacity of any existing transport. The demand for steamers was therefore sudden, and everything that was able to burn coal was enlisted in the service. The freight on light goods from Hankow to Shanghai commenced at 20 taels, or £6, per ton for a voyage of three days. The pioneer inland steamer was the Fire Dart, which had been built to the order of an American house for service in the Canton river. She was soon followed by others built expressly for the Yangtze, and before long regular trade was carried on. Again the tradition asserted itself of every mercantile house owning its own river steamer, some more than one. Steamers proved a mine of wealth for a certain time. Merchants were thereby enticed into a technical business for which they had neither training nor aptitude, and the natural consequences were not very long delayed.
While on the subject of river steamers, it is interesting to recall that in the beginning English merchants sent their orders for the Yangtze to the United States. The vessels were light, roomy, and luxurious, admirably adapted to their work. In the course of a few years, however, the tables were turned, and the Americans themselves came to the Clyde builders with their specifications, and had their river steamers built of iron. Many economies and great improvements have been made in the construction and management of these vessels since 1861, but we need not pursue the matter into further detail here.
The opening of the Yangtze made a revolution in the tea trade, for the product of Central China, which formerly was carried on men's backs over the Meiling Pass to Canton, could now be brought by water cheaply and quickly to Hankow, which in the very year of its opening became a subsidiary shipping port—subsidiary, that is, to Shanghai, where the ocean voyage began. Before long, however, this great central mart became an entrepot for ocean traffic. To the steamer Scotland, owned by Messrs W. S. Lindsay & Co. and commanded by Captain A. D. Dundas, R.N., belongs the honour of being the first ocean steamer to ascend the river to Hankow, and thereby opening the interior of China to direct trade with foreign countries. And within two years a sailing vessel was towed up the river and loaded a cargo of the new season's tea for London.
But the most interesting item in the budget of that annus mirabilis 1858 was the opening of Japan to foreign intercourse. To contemporaries it was the discovery of a new world of activity, intelligence, beauty—an elaborate civilisation built on strange foundations. Could the veil of the future have been withdrawn for the men of that day, how their imaginations would have been staggered before the unrolling of an epic transcending in human interest all the creations of fiction! But before all things there was trade to be done with awakening Japan, nobody knew what or how; while the seductive novelties of the life, the art, the scenery, and the laws contested the supremacy of the claims of mundane commerce. Here was an ideal opening for the commercial pioneer. What kind of merchandise would the Japanese buy, and what had they to sell, were naturally the first objects of inquiry. For this purpose ships with trial cargoes had to be sent hither and thither to explore, and there was work here for the kind of handy craft that had had such a run on the China coast. By their means was the foreign trade of the Japanese ports opened to the world. The clipper ship Mirage, laden with Manchester goods in which the late Sir John Pender was interested, lay several days in Shanghai waiting orders to proceed on an experimental trip to Japan as early as 1858, but the owners wisely concluded that the venture would be premature.
So far we have dealt only with what may be considered as the outriders of the host, and the subject would be very incomplete without giving some account of the main body, the common carriers of the international trade, filling by far the most important place in the economical system of the countries of their origin. While endeavouring to confine our attention as much as possible within the limits of the field embraced by the China, developing later into the Far Eastern, trade, the progress of the merchant shipping employed therein cannot be fully understood except from a standpoint more cosmopolitan. For the history of the Eastern shipping is intimately bound up with events which were taking place in other and widely-separated quarters of the globe in the middle of this century. Within the space of three to four years events happened of a world-moving character, forming the basis of the commercial revolution that has set its mark on the second half of the century. The catholicity of commerce and its unfailing inventiveness in supplying human wants were wonderfully illustrated at this time. Events so different in their nature as the potato blight in one hemisphere, the production of gold in another, and the abrogation of the Navigation Laws in England, combined within these few years to revolutionise the world's shipping trade.
In the year 1847 the world was first startled by the definitive announcement of gold discoveries in California, and four years later a similar phenomenon appeared in Australia. Coincidently with these events the first Universal Exhibition of the industries of all nations was held in Hyde Park, and whatever we may think of the relative influence of that and of the gold discoveries, there can be but one opinion as to the splendid advertisement which the Exposition lent to the golden promise of the Antipodes and the East Pacific. Thenceforth the whole world, industrial, commercial, and financial, beat with one pulse, a fact which has received constantly accumulating illustrations until the present day. It was as if the sectional divisions of the globe had been united in one great pool, forced to maintain a common level, subject only to disturbances of the nature of rising and falling waves. The new supplies of gold, by making money plentiful, inflated the price of all commodities and stimulated production in every department of agriculture and manufacture; but the time-worn yet ever-new passion for wealth, disseminated afresh throughout the civilised world, probably acted more powerfully on the material progress of mankind than the actual possession of the new riches. The rapid peopling of desert places created a demand for the necessaries of life—food, clothing, housing, tools, and appliances of every description. In a word, the tide of humanity, rushing to America for food and to the goldfields for the means of buying it, made such calls on the carrying powers of the world as could not be satisfied without a stupendous effort.
Of all nations the most responsive to the stimulus was beyond doubt the United States: it was there that shipbuilding had been making the most gigantic advances. The total tonnage afloat under the American flag bade fair at one time to rival that of Great Britain. The attention of the American shipping interest had been particularly directed towards China, where excellent employment rewarded the enterprise, not only in the ocean voyage out and home, but also in the coasting trade, which included the portable and very paying item of opium. English merchants and shipowners did not, of course, resign their share in the China trade without a struggle; but they were fighting on the defensive, and under the disadvantages incidental to that condition of warfare. Every improvement they introduced in the efficiency of their ships in order to cope with the advances of their rivals was promptly followed by a counter-move which gave the wide-awake Americans again the lead. About 1845 an important step forward was taken in the despatch of a new type of vessel from the United States to China which surpassed in speed the newest and best English ships. The British reply to this was the building of clippers, initiated in 1846 by Messrs Hall of Aberdeen. The first of these, a small vessel, having proved successful in competing for the coasting trade of China, larger ships of the clipper type were constructed, and so the seesaw went on.
Then emigration to the United States, chiefly from Ireland, made demands on the available tonnage which was indifferently met by vessels unfit for the work, and the American builders were not slow to see the advantage of placing a superior class of vessel on this important Atlantic service.
Following close on this salutary competition—East and West—came one of the epoch-making events just alluded to, the gold-mining in California, which more decisively than ever threw the advantage in the shipping contest on the side of the United States. The ocean was the true route to California for emigrants and material; but the voyage was long, and impatience of intervening space being the ruling temper of gold-seekers, the shortening of the time of transit became a crying want for the living cargoes, and scarcely less for the perishable provisions which the new ships were designed to carry. Speed, comfort, and capacity had therefore to be combined in a way which had never before been attempted. The result was the historical American clipper of the middle of the century, beautiful to look on with her cloud of white cotton canvas, covering every ocean highway. These were vessels of large capacity, carrying one-half more dead-weight than their registered tonnage;[28] built and rigged like yachts, and attaining a speed never before reached on the high seas. The pioneer of this fine fleet made the voyage from New York to San Francisco, a "coasting voyage" from which foreign flags were excluded, and returned direct in ballast, the owners realising a handsome profit on the outward passage alone. The Americans not only had the Californian trade practically in their own hands, but were prompt to turn the advantage which that gave them to profitable account in the competition for the trade of China. The ships, when empty, sailed across the Pacific, loading, at Canton or Shanghai, tea and other produce for London or New York, the three-cornered voyage occupying little more time than the direct route to China and back to which English ships were then confined. As the American clippers earned on the round about a third more freight than English ships could obtain on their out-and-home voyage, competition bore very hard on the latter. Larger and finer ships were constantly being added to the American fleet until they almost monopolised the trade not only between New York and San Francisco, but also between China and Great Britain. British shipping was, in fact, reduced to the greatest depression, the falling off in the supply of new tonnage being almost commensurate with the increase of that of the United States. A phenomenal advance was recorded also in the entries of foreign ships into British ports to the displacement of British-owned tonnage.
It was at this most critical juncture that the heroic remedy of repeal of the Navigation Laws in 1850 consigned British shipowners to absolute despair; for if they could not hold their own while protected by these laws, how were they to survive the removal of the last barrier from the competition of the whole world? But the darkest hour was, as often happens, that before the dawn. The withdrawal of protective legislation proved the turning-point in the fortunes of the British shipowner. In part it was an efficient cause, inasmuch as it threw the shipowner entirely on his own resources for his existence. He had to look to improvements in the efficiency and economy of his ships, for which it must be admitted there was considerable room. There were many conservative prejudices to be got rid of—that one, for example, which held it dangerous to have less than one foot in breadth to four in length, the adherence to which rendered British ships oval tubs compared with the American, which had for many years been proving the superiority of five and even six to one. The English axiom, which had so long resisted plain reason, had at last to yield to necessity. And so with many other antiquated conditions, including the quality and qualifications of masters, officers, and seamen.