ment of varied China knowledge, office experience and official caution; what he had always possessed was unusual intellectual gifts, a fine memory, and a rare power of concentration. He had learned by competition with others that his abilities were considerable and that his acquired knowledge and powers of observation were exceptional. In manner he was shy, unobtrusive, almost unsocial among strangers. He lacked the bearing of the self-confident leader; yet he surely knew that he had more "brains" than most men, and need not distrust his powers. He had ambition, and, I doubt not, he had fully resolved within his own breast even now when only twenty-four that he could and would make a great career. The most definite accounts of the beginnings of the Chinese foreign customs service are those given by Morse in his Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire, chapter xii, and by Hart himself in a memorandum written in 1864, which is to be found in the British China Blue Book of 1865. In the fifties of the last century the European and American trade and shipping in China were restricted by the government of that country, theoretically though not altogether in fact, to five cities on or near the coast. One of these "open ports" or "treaty ports" so called, was Canton, another was Shanghai-and there were three minor places, Ningpo, Foochow, and Amoy. Here, naturally, were Chinese custom houses, managed by native officials commissioned from Peking, who were aided by staffs of Chinese clerks, interpreters, duty calculators, goods examiners, watchmen, etc. Nominally the tariff rates were identical at all these places, for there existed a published tariff (on imports and on exports also); and nominally the methods of doing custom house business were identical in details at all the open ports. In practice, however, there was infinite variety, laxity, caprice and even corruption. Bribery or bullying of the Chinese customs officials was pretty common among the foreign merchants. These conditions made it impossible for the would-be honorable importer or exporter to compete with his less scrupulous rivals in trade without stooping to malpractices which he despised. This state of things, for which I find the nearest parallel of our own place and day in our dishonest system of taxation, is well depicted in Hart's memorandum of 1864 cited above. I remember that a reputable English merchant once described to me how in those lax times he had contrived, by means of bribes shrewdly distributed, to clear without charges a ship laden full of dutiable tea-reporting her at the customs as departing in ballast! Many did this-must do it; though the foregoing case was an extreme one. Thus the customs officers got rich; while their government received far less revenue than it was entitled to. The demoralization was general, and the government seemed helpless to correct it. Now happened a sudden, rather trivial, event at a single Chinese port, which was destined within half a dozen years to bring about a reform hitherto undreamt of, and to produce momentous and far-reaching consequences. The Taiping rebellion was in full career in central China, though it had not reached Shanghai. But one morning in 1853, a secret sect of malcontents called the "Small Swords" surprised and captured the walled native town of Shanghai. The custom house naturally fell into their hands; whereupon the collector, called the Taotai, took refuge with his staff and underlings outside the city in the suburb specially occupied by the European and American merchants, consuls and traders. No recognition or sympathy was accorded to the "Small Swords," nor were they permitted to enter the European settlement. It was then agreed between the consuls and the dispossessed Taotai that trade should not stop, nor should customs duties cease to be collected. In order to check the tendency towards collapse of the customs functions, and to safeguard the Chinese revenue, for which indeed the consuls felt themselves in a degree responsible—it seemed best that the Taotai should be sustained and reinforced in the discharge of his duty by a few foreigners of good standing, to be called inspectors and paid by him. Thus was born the foreign Inspectorate of customs -at Shanghai, in June, 1854. One of the first inspectors was Captain Wade, well known twenty years after as Sir Thomas Wade, the British minister. Within about a year Wade was succeeded by Mr. H. N. Lay, till then a British ment of varied China knowledge, office experience and official caution; what he had always possessed was unusual intellectual gifts, a fine memory, and a rare power of concentration. He had learned by competition with others that his abilities were considerable and that his acquired knowledge and powers of observation were exceptional. In manner he was shy, unobtrusive, almost unsocial among strangers. He lacked the bearing of the self-confident leader; yet he surely knew that he had more "brains" than most men, and need not distrust his powers. He had ambition, and, I doubt not, he had fully resolved within his own breast even now when only twenty-four that he could and would make a great career. The most definite accounts of the beginnings of the Chinese foreign customs service are those given by Morse in his Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire, chapter xii, and by Hart himself in a memorandum written in 1864, which is to be found in the British China Blue Book of 1865. In the fifties of the last century the European and American trade and shipping in China were restricted by the government of that country, theoretically though not altogether in fact, to five cities on or near the coast. One of these "open ports" or "treaty ports" so called, was Canton, another was Shanghai-and there were three minor places, Ningpo, Foochow, and Amoy. Here, naturally, were Chinese custom houses, managed by native officials commissioned from Peking, who were aided by staffs of Chinese clerks, interpreters, duty calculators, goods examiners, watchmen, etc. Nominally the tariff rates were identical at all these places, for there existed a published tariff (on imports and on exports also); and nominally the methods of doing custom house business were identical in details at all the open ports. In practice, however, there was infinite variety, laxity, caprice and even corruption. Bribery or bullying of the Chinese customs officials was pretty common among the foreign merchants. These conditions made it impossible for the would-be honorable importer or exporter to compete with his less scrupulous rivals in trade without stooping to malpractices which he despised. This state of things, for which I find the nearest parallel of our own place and day in our dishonest system of taxation, is well depicted in Hart's memorandum of 1864 cited above. I remember that a reputable English merchant once described to me how in those lax times he had contrived, by means of bribes shrewdly distributed, to clear without charges a ship laden full of dutiable tea-reporting her at the customs as departing in ballast! Many did this-must do it; though the foregoing case was an extreme one. Thus the customs officers got rich; while their government received far less revenue than it was entitled to. The demoralization was general, and the government seemed helpless to correct it. Now happened a sudden, rather trivial, event at a single Chinese port, which was destined within half a dozen years to bring about a reform hitherto undreamt of, and to produce momentous and far-reaching consequences. The Taiping rebellion was in full career in central China, though it had not reached Shanghai. But one morning in 1853, a secret sect of malcontents called the "Small Swords" surprised and captured the walled native town of Shanghai. The custom house naturally fell into their hands; whereupon the collector, called the Taotai, took refuge with his staff and underlings outside the city in the suburb specially occupied by the European and American merchants, consuls and traders. No recognition or sympathy was accorded to the "Small Swords," nor were they permitted to enter the European settlement. It was then agreed between the consuls and the dispossessed Taotai that trade should not stop, nor should customs duties cease to be collected. In order to check the tendency towards collapse of the customs functions, and to safeguard the Chinese revenue, for which indeed the consuls felt themselves in a degree responsible-it seemed best that the Taotai should be sustained and reinforced in the discharge of his duty by a few foreigners of good standing, to be called inspectors and paid by him. Thus was born the foreign Inspectorate of customs -at Shanghai, in June, 1854. One of the first inspectors was Captain Wade, well known twenty years after as Sir Thomas Wade, the British minister. Within about a year Wade was succeeded by Mr. H. N. Lay, till then a British come. consular official. From 1855 Mr. Lay directed and developed the new organization for several years. Hart was yet to The foreign inspectorate, be it noted, was first established at Shanghai alone—not elsewhere. There it introduced a general reform of customs procedure. All the merchants were compelled to pay duty strictly according to tariff; and while some of them would have preferred the old game of risk and fraud, it was evident that with the new organization lay the path of honesty and self-respect. At the same time the Chinese government for their part began to get a sure and steadily increasing revenue, with the foreigners' qualities of organization, vigilance, and probity in control. The result was that towards the close of 1858, when the new and permanent commercial treaties were adopted under the lead of Lord Elgin, it was in set terms stipulated that the Chinese government might appoint of their own independent choice any foreigners (European or American) whom they wished, to assist them in the collection of their revenue, and that the new system—the foreign inspectorate -should be extended beyond Shanghai and made uniform at all the treaty ports. Laurence Oliphant, Lord Elgin's private secretary, in his delightful book Lord Elgin's Mission, justly anticipated that this stipulation might prove the most important of the new trade regulations. A few months after, viz., late in the spring of 1859, came the first step towards extension of the Shanghai system. The famous and ancient customs port of Canton was to receive a semi-foreign administration on the Shanghai model; and the Chinese viceroy there, who knew young Hart favorably as the interpreter in the British consulate, invited him to initiate the service. Thereupon, the British government's consent have been obtained, Hart resigned the consular service and accepted the post of deputy commissioner (in America termed collector) in the Chinese imperial maritime customs at Canton a Chinese office, under Chinese control represented by Mr. Lay as the chief; and from that time till the day of his death in London in 1910 a period of fifty-one 2 2 Lord Elgin's Mission to China and Japan, by Laurence Oliphant, Harper, 1860, p. 484. |