[Sidenote: Subterfuges,]
[Sidenote: defeated by firmness.]
Shanghae.—Sunday, October 10th.—We have not done much yet, which is the cause of my having written less than usual during the last few days. I have reason to suspect that the Commissioners came here with some hope that they might make difficulties about 'some of the concessions obtained in the Treaty, with a kind of notion perhaps that they might continue to bully us at Canton. If I had departed, I think it probable enough that everything would have been thrown into confusion, and the grand result of proving that my Treaty was waste paper might have been attained. I have thought it necessary to take steps to stop this sort of thing at once, so I have sent some very peremptory letters to the Commissioners about Canton, refusing to have anything to say to them till I am satisfied on this point, &c. I have also, through a secret channel, had the hint conveyed to them, that if they do not give me full satisfaction at once I am capable of going off to Tientsin again,—a move which would no doubt cost their heads to both Kweiliang and Hwashana. I have already extorted from them a proclamation announcing the Treaty, and I have now demanded that they shall remove the Governor-General of the Canton provinces from office, and suppress the War Committee of the gentry.
October 16th.—Yes, the report of the conclusion of a Treaty which was conveyed so rapidly overland to St. Petersburg was true, and yet I am not on my way home!… Do not think that I am indifferent to this delay. It is however, for the moment, inevitable. Everything would have been lost if I had left China. The violence and ill-will which exist in Hong-Kong are something ludicrous…. As it is, matters are going on very fairly with the Imperial Commissioners, and I expect an official visit from them this day at noon. The English mail arrived yesterday…. The visit of the Commissioners went off very well. I think that they have accepted the situation, and intend to make the best of it.
October 19th.—Yesterday I returned the visit of the Commissioners, going in state, with a guard, &c., into the city. We had a Chinese repast—birds'-nest soup, sharks' fins, &c. I tried to put them at their ease, after our disagreeable encounters at Tientsin. They seemed disposed to be conversable and friendly. The Governor-General of this province, who is one of them, is considered a very clever man, and he appears to have rather a notion of taking a go-ahead policy with foreigners.
[Sidenote: The tariff.]
The chief matter that remained to be arranged was the settlement of certain trade-regulations, supplemental to the Treaty, involving a complete revision of the tariff.
[Sidenote: The opium trade.]
A tariff is not usually a matter of general interest; but this tariff is of more than mere commercial importance, as having for the first time regulated, and therefore legalised, the trade in opium.[1] Hitherto this article had been mentioned in no treaty, but had been left to the operation of the Chinese municipal law, which prohibited it altogether. But the Chinese would have it; there was no lack of foreign traders, chiefly British and American, ready to run the risk of smuggling it for the sake of the large profits to be made upon it; and the custom-house officials, both natives and foreign inspectors, hardly even kept up the farce of pretending to ignore the fact. At one port, indeed, the authorities exacted from the opium traders a sort of hush-money, equivalent to a tax about 6 per cent. ad valorem. It might well be said that 'the evils of this illegal, connived at, and corrupting traffic could hardly be overstated; that it was degrading alike to the producer, the importer, the official, whether foreign or Chinese, and the purchaser.'
To remedy these evils two courses were open. One was effective prohibition, with the assistance of the Foreign Powers; but this, the Chinese Commissioners admitted, was practically hopeless, mainly owing to the inveterate appetite of their people for the drug. The other remained: regulation and restriction, by the imposition of as high a duty as could be maintained without giving a stimulus to smuggling. It was not without much consideration that Lord Elgin adopted the latter alternative; and it was a great satisfaction to him that his views on this subject were ultimately shared by Mr. Reed, the Envoy of the United States, who had come to the country with the intention of supporting the opposite opinion.
In the course of the conferences on these points, which were carried on in the most friendly spirit, Lord Elgin induced the Commissioners to make a separate agreement that he should be permitted, irrespectively of the conditions imposed by the Treaty, to make an expedition up the great river Yangtze Kiang; a permission of which he gladly availed himself, not only for the sake of exploring a new and most interesting country, but even more with the view of marking how entirely and cordially his Treaty was accepted.