CHINESE COMMERCE. 197 



raise tobacco which is consumed mostly in Northern Kwang-tung. If 

 it were shipped direct it would be charged en route a large and uncer- 

 tain likin tax, the uncertainty of the amount being the worst feature, 

 as it may easily convert an apparently profitable transaction into a 

 serious loss. To avoid this the tobacco is loaded on a sea-going junk and 

 shipped to Hongkong. From there the junk brings it back and enters 

 it at the point of original shipment as a foreign importation. For this 

 the merchant secures a transit pass under which he ships it to its 

 destination. He has paid the freight and import taxes of five per cent, 

 each; the transit pass fee of two and a half per cent., and the 

 shipping charges both ways to Hongkong, and the expense of 

 rehandling. These items he can ascertain accurately beforehand, and, 

 therefore, prefers paying them rather than run the likin gauntlet, which 

 may be from ten per cent, to fifty per cent, or more. 



The Chinaman is by very instinct a trader, is quick to see and seize 

 an opportunity to turn a profit, and has, what few other Eastern 

 Asiatics have, a high sense of commercial honor. Although the great 

 mass of them is poor, yet there is a wealthy class, and there exists, even 

 in the interior, a demand for much more than the mere necessaries of 

 life. 



Now, what have the United States done in the past in this great 

 country, how do they stand there to-day, what can they do and what 

 should they do in the future? These are the considerations that most 

 concern us. 



To answer the first two of these questions there are two sources of 

 statistics which we can examine — the returns of the United States, and 

 of the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs. Unfortunately, both of 

 these sources are rendered valueless for exact deductions because of 

 Hongkong. This, as is well known, is a British colony, and one of the 

 few places on the globe where actual free trade exists. Being a British 

 colony, enjoying free trade and possessing a magnificent harbor, it has 

 become a great depot, or warehouse, where goods, whose ultimate des- 

 tination, either in China or anywhere else in the Far East, is not defi- 

 nitely fixed, are shipped in the first instance, and thence rebilled to the 

 point of consumption. 



In this act their nationality is lost, for the returns of the shipping 

 nation classes them as exports to Hongkong, while China, of course, 

 treats them as imports from that place. The import returns of the 

 Imperial Maritime Customs show that nearly one-half of the foreign 

 commerce entering China comes from Hongkong. Thence many writ- 

 ers fall into errors, either by taking the direct trade between China and 

 any other country as limited to the reported figures, or by classing 

 Hongkong under the head of Great Britain and Colonies. The con- 

 clusions reached in these ways are grievously wrong. Although foreign 



