GREAT COST OF TRANSIT. 351 



duties through the Consuls, together with the 

 power of warehousing goods in our own warehouses, 

 and the privilege of trading to four new ports in 

 the empire, must ultimately have the effect of 

 reducing the price of tea obtained by the native 

 grower and factor to a fair mercantile remuneration. 

 What that price may be, or whether any reduction 

 may take place under the circumstances of an 

 increasing demand for tea at the different ports of 

 trade, in consequence of a forced introduction of 

 our imports into China, it is impossible to conjec- 

 ture ; but as a large annual balance of trade has to 

 be paid to India, there is reason to think that the 

 shipment of tea to England will afford for years to 

 come little more than a bare remittance. 



Another considerable item which enters into all 

 calculations concerning the cost of tea to foreigners 

 at Canton, is the great cost of transit from the tea 

 provinces. The province of Fokien, especially, is 

 encompassed by lofty mountains on every side 

 towards the main, which seem to isolate it, as it 

 were, from the rest of the Empire : and perhaps the 

 difficulties of communication by land, added to the 

 natural sterility of the soil and mountainous aspect 

 of the country, may have tended in some degree to 

 create that superior hardihood and adventurous 

 spirit which the people of this province are said to 

 possess over the other inhabitants of the coast, and 

 which render them the- great carriers by sea of the 

 produce of the neighbouring provinces, as well as 



