James Burrill Angell to Walker Blaine, April 19, 1881

No. 156. Mr. Angell to Mr. Blaine.

Sir: In my No. 120 of February 28, last, I set forth the objectionable manner in which the Chinese authorities had put in force a regulation concerning chartered junks on the Yangtsze River, and described my interview with the Tsung-li Yamên on the subject. I expressed the opinion that the regulation was in contravention of the (amended) twenty-first article of the French treaty, and that most, if not all the ministers here agreed with me in that view. Indeed, the position could hardly be questioned, if the language of the treaty was to be taken without qualification. But on pursuing my investigation more thoroughly than I had been able to do at the time of writing you, I discovered evidence that the French minister who negotiated the twenty-first article above referred to, expressly stipulated with the Chinese Government that the article should not apply to the chartering of junks on the Yangtsze, but that the old Rule VI, of the Yangtsze regulations which provides that native craft chartered by British merchants shall pay port dues according to Chinese tariff, should remain in force. On my requesting the French minister to examine his archives and to favor me with a copy of the dispatch in which if at all this modification of article XXI, had been made, after a careful search he kindly furnished me with the communication of Mr. Bellonet to Prince Kung, dated August 20, 1865, a copy of which, with the translation, I herewith inclose. No one of the ministers here was previously aware of the existence of this document. They now all agree with me that, however objectionable the manner in which the rule requiring the native owners of chartered junks to pay port dues has been put into operation, we have no ground in the treaty stipulations to take objection to the rule itself.

In a dispatch recently received from Mr. Consul Shepard of Hankow, he argues that articles VI and XXIII of the German treaty conflict with the new rule. But neither the German minister nor I see any force in the argument. The consul reports that an attempt to freight a chartered junk since the enforcement of the new rule has utterly failed because the owners of goods were afraid the cargo would be subjected to “squeezes” on the voyage. It can hardly be doubted that an end is put to the chartering of junks by the foreigner. I shall call the attention of the foreign office to this fact on the first favorable opportunity to show them that they are depriving the junk owners of the opportunity to charter their boats to foreigners. But they are so strongly, and I fear so justly convinced that the chartering of junks is the means of defrauding the government of revenue that I have little expectation of their rescinding or modifying their order for the enforcement of this rule.

There is abundant evidence in the legations here that foreigners have in too many instances nominally chartered junks in order to enable the real shippers, Chinamen, to run the barriers and defraud the native customs. In my opinion it is this abuse rather than, as Mr. Consul Shepard suggests, a desire to aid the China Merchants’ Steamship Company, which has stimulated the government to put in force a rule which has not been enforced in seventeen years.

In two dispatches to Mr. Consul Shepard I have fully set forth the views expressed by me in my No. 120 to you and in this dispatch.

Trusting that my course may meet with the approval of the Department,

I have, &c.,