Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/63

Rh 26th of August when Sir Henry Pottinger returned the commissioners' visit and renewed ashore the negotiations which had opened so auspiciously on board the Cornwallis. Three days later the signatures were appended to the Treaty on the Cornwallis. The three commissioners first signed and then Sir Henry Pottinger inscribed his name. The running up of the flags of Great Britain and China on the mast of the Cornwallis, and the firing of a salute of twenty-one guns, announced to the outer world the completion of this most important diplomatic act. Immediately after the signature of the Treaty the ships began to leave the river, and on the payment of the first instalment of the indemnity, the troops were withdrawn from Chusan. By the end of October the expeditionary force had been broken up, the various units having returned to their several stations with the exception of a body of seventeen hundred troops which was left to garrison Hongkong. Several unfortunate incidents occurring shortly after the signature of the Treaty imperilled for a time the peace which had been concluded. In one case the authorities in Formosa massacred the shipwrecked crews of two vessels manned mainly by British-Indian subjects. Shortly afterwards a Cantonese mob made an attack on the British factory, plundering it and setting it on fire. In both instances the Chinese Government showed a very commendable spirit in punishing the offenders, and the episodes were overlooked. But the arrangements consequential upon the Treaty dragged somewhat, and it was not until June 4, 1843, that the ratifications of the Treaty were exchanged at Hongkong, while six weeks further elapsed before Sir Henry Pottinger found himself in a position to issue a proclamation announcing that he had signed the arrangements for the conduct of trade which were the most important provisions of the Treaty. Simultaneously with the publication of the British proclamation a formal announcement was made by Keying, the Chinese commissioner, who had conducted the elaborate negotiations with Sir Henry Pottinger, that henceforth trade at the five ports named in the Treaty was open to "the men from afar" without distinction, and the hope was expressed that "the weapons of war being for ever laid aside, joy and profit shall be the perpetual lot of all." There was one important omission in the settlement which was thus completed. No reference whatever was made in the Commercial Treaty to the opium trade. Sir Henry Pottinger had striven to obtain from the Chinese Government the legalisation of the traffic, but the Peking authorities had steadily declined to entertain any proposal of the kind, and failing this the British Plenipotentiary deemed it advisable to leave the matter unsettled. It was an unfortunate decision as it supplied an opening for fresh trouble, and trouble was not slow in coming. Almost before the ink was dry on the official proclamations announcing the completion of the Treaty arrangements an acute controversy arose as to whether opium was admissible under the Treaty or not. The mercantile class held that it could be imported under the final clause of the tariff, which provided that all articles not expressly named should be admitted at an  duty of 5 per cent., but this view was promptly repudiated by Sir Henry Pottinger, who issued an official intimation declaring in emphatic terms that such a construction was untenable as "the traffic in opium was illegal and contraband by the laws and imperial edicts of China." The position taken up by the British authority was severely criticised, and it undoubtedly tended to produce an unpleasant impression not only amongst the British traders, but in Chinese official quarters where there was a failure to comprehend the logic and equity of a policy which admitted the illegality of the opium trade as far as China was concerned, and yet took no measures to prevent the importation of the drug.

With all its imperfections the Treaty of Nanking was an instrument of enormous importance to the commercial interests not of Great Britain alone but of the civilised world. It ushered in a new era of trade—an era fraught with great possibilities for the West and the East alike. No longer were merchants transacting business in China at the mercy of a corrupt and capricious officialdom, carrying on their transactions in daily and almost hourly dread of a crisis which would inflict disastrous injury upon their interests. Thanks to British pertinacity, reinforced by the cordial good will and moral support of the United States and France, the commercial relations of China with the outer world were regularised, and an assured and protected position was given to the foreign commercial community at the five Treaty ports. These had been selected with an eye to the establishment of the new trading conditions on the broadest foundations. Instead of being confined to one corner of the empire trade had now openings in five distinct quarters, each of considerable importance. Canton gave access to the great markets of Southern China; Amoy was an historic commercial centre with important connections with an extended populous area in the province of Fokien; Foochow, the capital of the province of Fokien, and that seated on the Min, one of the great rivers of China, was well placed for the tea industry; and Shanghai was a centre from which the vast Yangtse trade could be tapped. The openings thus afforded were calculated to extend enormously the operations of foreign trade provided only that the Chinese Government had accepted the new situation in good faith. Unfortunately it had not done so, and many years were to pass away before the advantages wrung from the Chinese by Sir Hugh Gough's gallant force reached anything like their full fruition.