China trade

“ The general China trade, it was said, was now developing in magnitude corresponding to the diminution of profits in the case of individuals. Having no power of expansion, the Hongkong trade was more keenly affected by this reduction in profitableness, caused by the natural working of increased competition. With so few outlets to trade and these obstructed, as to the junk trade, by the Chinese Customs Blockade, Hongkong now possessed but small opportunities of extending its trade with regard to imports into China. ”

“ Americans and Continentals of all nationalities arrived in rapidly-increasing numbers, bringing merchandise for the Chinese market, thus giving native buyers a much larger variety of goods from which to choose, and introducing a competition fatal to the former enormous profits.
Although the volume of both import and export trade shows a continuous yearly increase, it tends more and more to centre in the hands of a comparatively few large European firms with which Chinese merchants from all parts of the Empire directly negotiate, to the exclusion of foreigners in a small way of business. ”

“ Essentially a consuming country, it is the surplus of these two articles that China has been able to afford which has constituted the staple of export trade from first to last. It is an interesting question whether there may not be surpluses of some other Chinese products to be similarly drawn upon. If the foreign trade has been distinguished by its simplicity, being confined to a very few standard commodities, such cannot be predicated of the native trade, which is of a most miscellaneous character. It is impossible to give any statistical account of the coast and inland traffic of China. ”

“ But no right-thinking Englishman, no matter how optimistically he may view the general situation of Great Britain's trade in the Chinese Empire, can deny that British trade does not expand proportionately with what is to be done and what others are doing. This is not pessimistic. Optimism is the keynote of the British merchant, and Great Britain's {27} returns of exports and imports in the China trade are beyond that of any other nation. ”

“ The magnitude and extreme importance of our interests in the East—in commerce and revenue (for, as I have shown, the China trade is the connecting-link between Great Britain and India, and necessary to complete the circle of trading operations) —suggest on the one hand the necessity of avoiding all measures that may rashly jeopardise such interests, yet nevertheless make it imperative on the other to adopt firmly and unhesitatingly whatever steps may be necessary to prevent loss or deterioration. ”

“ Forty years ago the foreign trade was practically monopolised by Englishmen, who had only to place their goods on the market of any newly-opened port for them to be snapped up at almost any price by [233] Chinese merchants, who then possessed but little knowledge of foreign wares and were exceedingly timid of their own officials. As time wore on this ignorance and timidity grew less and less, until the Chinese purchaser came to close quarters with the English importer, eliminating middlemen at the small ports and transferring operations chiefly to the great emporiums of Hongkong and Shanghai. ”

“ Every traveller in every part of China is astonished at the quantity and variety of the merchandise which is constantly on the move. It is this that inspires confidence in the boundless potentialities of Chinese commerce, which seems only waiting for the link of connection between the resources of the empire and the enterprise of the Western world.
Besides the sea-borne trade of which it was possible to make these approximate estimates, there is always in China an immense inland trade ”

“ Foreign trade therefore is, in China, every way confined within a much narrower circle than that to which it would naturally extend itself, if more freedom was allowed to it, either in their own ships, or in those of foreign nations.
Manufactures, as in a small bulk they frequently contain a great value, and can upon that account be transported at less expense from one country to another than most parts of rude produce, are, in almost all countries, the principal support of foreign trade. ”

“ The awakening of China means her entrance into strong competition for her full share of the trade of the world. With her great commercial capacity and enormous productive power she will be able to a large extent to supply her own wants, and will certainly reach out to distant foreign markets. Exploration discloses the fact that in bygone ages Chinese influence has reached to the uttermost parts of the globe. ”

“ In 1627 the Presidency at Batavia sent home a long despatch strongly urging the desirability of making another attempt to open up trade with China. They wrote:—
"Concerning the trade of China three things are especially made known to the world."
"The one is the abundant trade it affordeth; the second is that they admit no stranger into their country; the third is that trade is as life unto the vulgar, which in remote parts they will seek and accommodate with hazard of all they have." ”

“ The export trade of China must inevitably remain very limited so long as foreigners are prevented from penetrating into the country and directing the exploitation of its resources. Whilst it was a mere matter of opening a few ports, the Chinese Government made no very serious opposition; but only the realization of its incapacity to resist pressure induced it to permit the introduction into the Celestial Empire of foreign capital, machinery, and industrial methods. Well may we ask, Can the Sick Man of Peking endure such violent treatment? ”

“ The internal market, for one thing, will tend to keep pace with China's productions. If China exports, she will also import; the volume of trade will no doubt be enormously increased, and that trade will bring prosperity to China and to those other countries who are trading with her. Her people will gradually grow accustomed to Western conditions, and, if China maintains her independence, those conditions will not be allowed to become too onerous to the poorer classes. The wealth of another country does not injure her neighbours; it is rather her poverty which injures them. ”

“ Not only the farmer, but the trader, both Chinese and European, find it a most profitable source of trade. It was hard, and it is hard, to persuade the European trader that it is injurious to China, and to understand the reason we must turn back to the thought which was suggested at the beginning of the chapter, namely, that it is very doubtful whether the English race has any natural desire for the vice, while it is most patent that the Chinese have a peculiar national tendency towards this form of dissipation. ”

“ When our business men establish their own houses in China instead of dealing as now through European and Chinese firms, it is not unreasonable to expect that the United States will outstrip its larger rivals Great Britain and France, though, as I have already intimated, it is one thing to ship foreign goods to China and quite another thing to control them after their arrival, for the Chinese are disposed to manage that trade themselves and they know how to do it. ”

“ The beginnings of China's foreign trade date back to the third century, though it was not until comparatively recent years that it grew to large proportions. To-day the leading seaports of China have many great business houses handling vast quantities of European and American goods. The most persistent effort is made to extend commerce with the Chinese. That the effort is successful is shown by the fact that the foreign trade of China increased from 217,183,960 taels in 1888 to 583,547,291 taels in 1904. ”

“ If, therefore, European export trade may apparently suffer from the manufacturing of goods hitherto imported by the Chinese, such as cottons, for instance, matters will balance themselves eventually for the simple reason that, the richer the Chinese get, the more they will buy. ”

“ This Chinese Company obtained no more than that share in the coasting trade which naturally belongs to the Chinese, and its history demonstrated the truth that it is in the matter of money where the strength of the foreign trade in China lies, and that the greater the share which the Chinese take in the minor portions of the trade, the greater will be the growth of the more important portions of the foreign trade with China, loss in one direction being directly compensated by gain in another. ”

“ The trade in China during the last three years has been a losing, and in many instances a ruinous, trade, not because the English do not drink more tea, or the Chinese do not find it convenient to wear more cotton of our manufacture, but simply 206 because in such market the supply has not been carefully regulated by an accurate estimate of the probable demand. ”

“ Apart from this unfortunate episode the times were not at this period propitious for the China trade. "Interlopers" had become a source of serious anxiety to the Company. On the one hand they made things difficult in China by submitting to exactions; on the other they injured sales at home by flooding the market with goods at low rates. The Court, writing to Madras in October, 1690, thus explained the situation: "China goods of all sorts are in very low esteem here; we sell them cheaper than ever we did in times of peace. ”

“ Or the foreigner might learn the language, dismiss his compradore, and try to sell direct to the Chinese consumer and Chinese merchant.
It is a world-trade question, a terrific struggle in economics, this getting rid of the middleman, the drone, and it is therefore still an unsettled question in China. The compradore and shroff exist, although many foreign commercial travelers, especially Germans and Japanese, are selling direct to the Chinese in small lots. ”

“ Their needs are making China the greatest market in the world. They want everything—railways, machinery, tools, guns, ships, and much else. That there is an unprecedented large trade to be done must at once be granted. During the last decade, without thinking for the moment of the Revolution, China's foreign trade has doubled; in the next decade, if peace prevails, it must be trebled, and although one cannot ignore the fact that under ordinary conditions of progress China must ultimately become a serious rival to Western countries as an industrial nation, that day is not yet at hand. ”

“ 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 descent thus accounted for has chiefly then been caused by the competition amongst Westerners allowing Chinese merchants to get on even terms with them, when, being extremely good business men, holding absolute command of the native markets, and able to live much more cheaply than Europeans, they have generally ousted small foreign traders from the out-ports by carrying operations over their heads direct to well-known houses at the great centres of trade. ”

“ The import trade is now very much in the hands ofc the Chinese merchants, who avail themselves of the coast steamers to run to Hongkong to buy their wares, and who, if persons of respectability and standing, find every facility afforded to them by the banks in carrying on their commercial undertakings, however small their own capital may be. The irregular, illegal system of inland transit dues is very damaging to foreign trade, and effectually excludes European wares from many of the marts of the interior. ”

“ 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 1913 and the following years will probably unfold a remarkably rapid advance in exports and imports. China has held back from all things foreign centuries enough, but during the past two decades the seed has been sown for such a harvest of trade and commercial prosperity as shall keep the factories of the West hard at work to cope with the demands—that is, if the merchants of the West are quick to seize their chances as they come. ”

“ From the China Sea to the British Burma border, from the southern port of Canton up through all the partially opened Eastern provinces, through the whole of the wonderful Yangtze Valley to the practically untouched west, and away into newly touched areas where the inhabitants are all anxious to buy foreign goods, there is presented an unparalleled opportunity for the foreign manufacturer. Any one who has taken an intelligent interest in China's trade with foreign countries must have been impressed with the fact that she was not importing one-hundredth part of what she could easily handle. ”