SHIPPING.
The East Indiaman -- Opium clippers -- Coasting craft --
Trading explorations -- Yangtze -- Japan -- Ocean trade --
American shipping -- Gold in California -- Repeal of
British Navigation Laws -- Gold in Australia -- Ocean
rivalry -- Tonnage for China -- Regular traders -- Silk --
British and American competition -- The China clipper --
Steam -- The Suez Canal -- Native shipping -- Lorchas.
Next in importance to the merchandise carried was the shipping which
carried it. That stately argosy, the East Indiaman, was already
invested with the halo of the past. Her leisurely voyages, once in two
years, regulated by the monsoons, landing the "new" tea in London
nearly a year old, and her comfortable habits generally, were matters
of legend at the time of which we write. But a parting glance at the
old is the best way of appreciating the new. The East Indiaman was the
very apotheosis of monopoly. The command was reserved as a short road
to fortune for the _protégés_ of the omnipotent Directors in
Leadenhall Street, and as with Chinese governors, the tenure of the
post was in practice limited to a very few years, for the Directors
were many and their cognates prolific. So many, indeed, were their
privileges, perquisites, and "indulgences" that a captain was expected
to have realised an ample independence in four or five voyages; the
officers and petty officers having similar opportunities,
proportionate to their rank. They were allowed tonnage space, the
captain's share being 56 tons, which they could either fill with their
own merchandise or let out to third parties. The value of this,
including the intermediate "port-to-port" voyage in India, may be
judged from the figures given by one captain, who from actual data
estimated the freight for the round voyage at £43 per ton. The
captains enjoyed also the passage-money, valued by the same authority
at £1500 per voyage. There were other "indulgences," scarcely
intelligible in our days, which yet yielded fabulous results. These
figures are taken from a statement submitted to the Honourable Company
by Captain Innes, who claimed, on behalf of himself and comrades,
compensation for the loss they sustained through the cessation of the
monopoly. The captain showed that he made, on the average of his three
last voyages, £6100 per voyage--of which £180 was pay!--without
counting "profits on investments," for the loss of which he rather
handsomely waived compensation. £8000 to £10,000 per voyage was
reckoned a not extravagant estimate of a captain's emoluments. The
Company employed chartered ships to supplement its own, and the
command of one of them was in practice put up to the highest bidder,
the usual premium being about £3000 for the privilege of the command,
which was of course severely restricted to qualified and selected men.
That such incredible privileges should be abused, to the detriment of
the too indulgent Company, was only natural. The captains, in fact,
carried on a systematic smuggling trade with Continental ports as
well as with ports in the United Kingdom where they had no business to
be at all, though they found pretexts, _à la Chinoise_, such as stress
of weather or want of water, if ever called to account. The Channel
Islands, the Scilly Islands, and the Isle of Wight supplied the
greatest facilities for the illicit traffic, and their populations
were much alarmed when measures were threatened to suppress it. The
inspecting commander reported officially from St Mary's, in 1828,
"that these islands were never known with so little smuggling as this
year, and the greatest part of the inhabitants are reduced to great
distress in consequence, for hitherto it used to be their principal
employment."[27] The ships were also met by accomplices on the high
seas which relieved them of smuggled goods. What is so difficult to
understand about such proceedings is that the Court of Directors,
though not conniving, seemed helpless to check these irregularities.
Their fulminations, resolutions, elaborate advertisements, and
measures prescribed for getting evidence against offenders, bore a
curious resemblance to those futile efforts which are from time to
time put forth by the Chinese Government, which is equally impotent to
suppress illicit practices in its administration. One cause of this
impotence was also very Chinese in character. The smugglers had
friends in office, who supplied them with the most confidential
information.
The East India Company, nevertheless, in one important respect
received value for its money--in the competence of its officers. The
greatest pains were taken to secure the efficiency of the service, for
the ships were more than mere carriers or passenger-boats. They were
maintained on a war-footing, and were manned by thoroughly disciplined
crews. Many gallant actions at sea, even against regular men-of-war,
stand to the credit of the Indiamen.
But what conceivable freight-money or profits on merchandise could
support a trade carried on under such luxurious conditions! It was
magnificent, indeed, but it was not business, and no surprise need be
felt that the East India Company, while furnishing its employees with
the means of fortune, made very little for its shareholders by either
its shipowning or mercantile operations. The Company was a standing
example of that not uncommon phenomenon, the progressionist become
obstructionist, blocking the door which it opened. For many years it
had played the part of dog-in-the-manger, keeping individual traders
out while itself deriving little if any benefit from its monopoly.
Whenever independent merchants succeeded--under great difficulties, of
course--in gaining a footing, they invariably proved the superiority
of their business methods; and it is to them, and not to the Company,
that the development of trade in the Far East is due. English
shipowners had constantly agitated for a share in the traffic round
the Cape, and there were many Indian-owned ships engaged in the China
trade, the Company's ostentatious abstention from carrying the opium
which it grew affording this favourable opening for private
adventurers.
It is somewhat surprising that the seafaring nations of the world, who
were free from the restrictions which so cramped the British
shipowners, should have suffered to endure so long a monopoly so
baseless as that of the East India Company. The fact seems to prove
the general depression of maritime energy in the early part of the
century. But succeeding to such a patriarchal _régime_, it is little
wonder that the common merchantmen, reduced to reasonable economical
conditions, should have reaped a bountiful harvest. The Company's
terms left a very handsome margin for shrinkage in the freight tariff,
while still leaving a remunerative return to the shipowner. The
expiration of the Company's charter, therefore, gave an immense
stimulus to the common carriers of the ocean; though, starting from
such an elevated plateau of profits, the inducements to improvements
in the build and management of ships were not very urgent.
The size of the ships and their capacity for cargo underwent slow
development in the first half of the century. The East Indiamen
averaged about 1000 tons, some ships being as large as 1300, while
those chartered by the Company seem to have run about 500 tons. All
were bad carriers, their cargo capacity not exceeding their registered
tonnage. In the ordinary merchant service which succeeded large ships
were deemed unsuited to the China trade, 300 tons being considered a
handy size, until the expansion of trade and necessity for speed
combined with economical working forced on shipowners a larger type of
vessel.
Of quite another class were the opium clippers, which also in a
certain sense represented monopoly in its long struggle with open
trade--the monopoly of capital, vested interests, and enterprise. The
clippers, first sailing craft and then steamers, were able by means of
the advantages they possessed to prolong the contest into the
'Sixties; indeed the echo of it had scarcely died away when the Suez
Canal and the telegraph cable revolutionised the whole Eastern trade
at a single stroke. The precious cargoes they carried, and scarcely
less valuable intelligence, supplied the means of maintaining the
opium-carriers in the highest efficiency. Every voyage was a race, the
rivalry being none the less animated for the smallness of the
competing field. Indeed, when reduced to a duel, the struggle became
the keenest. It was only towards the close of the period that the
opium-clipper system attained its highest organisation. The great
China houses of Jardine, Matheson, & Co., and Dent & Co., then ran
powerful steamers--the former firm chiefly between Calcutta and
Hongkong--their time of departure from the Indian port being regulated
so as to enable them to intercept the English mail-steamers on their
arrival in Singapore, where they received on board their owners'
despatches, with which they proceeded at once to Hongkong before the
mail-steamer had taken in her coal. They had speed enough to give the
P. and O. steamer two days on the run of 1400 miles; and making the
land in daylight, they would slip into one of the snug bays at the
back of the island at dusk and send their private mail-bag to the
merchant-prince to digest with his port, and either lie hidden under
the cliffs or put to sea again for a day or two with perhaps a number
of impatient passengers on board.
The rival house of Dent & Co. devoted their energies more especially
to the China coast. Their fast steamers would start from Hongkong an
hour after the arrival of the Indian and English mail, landing owners'
despatches at the mouth of the Yangtze, whence they were run across
country to Shanghai. To gain exclusive possession of a market or of a
budget of news for ever so brief a period was the spur continuously
applied to owners, officers, and men. How the public regarded these
operations may be inferred from a note in Admiral Keppel's diary of
1843: "Anonymous opium-clipper arrived from Bombay with only owners'
despatches. Beast."
All this of course presupposed a common ownership of ship and cargo,
or great liberties, if not risks, taken with the property of other
people. In the years before the war this common management of ship and
cargo was a simple necessity, for opium had to be stored afloat and
kept ready for sailing orders. The 20,000 chests surrendered in 1839
might have been all sent away to Manila or elsewhere had that course
of procedure been determined on. Captain John Thacker, examined before
the Parliamentary Committee of 1840, being asked what he would have
done in case the Chinese had ordered away the opium, answered, "I
would have sent mine away to the Malay Islands, to exchange it for
betel-nut and pepper.... I had a ship at Canton that I could not get
freighted with tea, and I intended to send her away with the opium." A
kind of solidarity between ship and cargo was thus an essential of the
trade at that time, and what originated in necessity was continued as
a habit for many years after its economical justification had ceased.
The ambition of owning or controlling ships became a feature of the
China trade, the smaller houses emulating the greater. It seemed as if
the repute of a merchant lacked something of completeness until he had
got one or more ships under his orders, and the first use the
possession was put to was usually the attempt to enforce against all
comers a quasi-monopoly either in merchandise or in news. To be able
to despatch a vessel on some special mission, like Captain Thacker,
had a fascination for the more enterprising of the merchants, which
may perhaps be referred back to the circumstance that they were men
still in the prime of life.
The passion was kept alive by the inducements offered by a series of
events which crowded on each other between the years 1858 and 1861.
Before that time the spread of rebellion, the prevalence of piracy,
and the general state of unrest and distrust which prevailed among the
Chinese commercial classes, threw them on the protection of foreign
flags, and the demand for handy coasting craft was generously
responded to by all maritime nations, but chiefly by the shipowners of
Northern Europe. Such a mosquito fleet was perhaps never before seen
as that which flew the flags of the Hanse Towns and of Scandinavia on
the China coast between 1850 and 1860; and many a frugal family on the
Elbe, the Weser, and the Baltic lived and throve out of the earnings
of these admirably managed and well-equipped vessels. The vessels were
mostly run on time-charters, which were exceedingly remunerative; for
the standard of hire was adopted from a period of English
extravagance, while the ships were run on a scale of economy--and
efficiency--scarcely then dreamed of in England. A schooner of 150
tons register earning $1500 per month, which was a not uncommon rate,
must have paid for herself in a year, for the dollar was then worth
5s. Yet the Chinese also made so much money by subletting their
chartered tonnage that foreigners were tempted into the same business,
without the same knowledge or assurance of loyal co-operation at the
various ports traded with.
The habit of handling ships in this way, whether profitably or not,
had the effect of facilitating the despatch of reconnoitring
expeditions when openings occurred, and they did occur on a
considerable scale within the period above mentioned. The year 1858
was an epoch in itself. It was the year of the treaty of Tientsin,
which threw open three additional trading-ports on the coast, three
within the Gulf of Pechili, and three on the Yangtze. Of the three
northern ports, excepting Tientsin, very little was known to the
mercantile community, and the selection of Têng-chow and Newchwang by
the British plenipotentiary shows what a change has in the interval
come over the relative intelligence of the Government and the
merchants; for in those days, it would appear, the Government was as
far in advance of the merchants in information about China as the
merchants of a later period have been in advance of the Government.
These unknown, almost unheard-of, ports excited much interest during
the year that elapsed between the signing of the treaty and its
ratification. Information about them from Chinese sources was
therefore diligently sought after.
Within a couple of miles of the foreign settlement of Shanghai--and it
was the same thing in the Ningpo river--compact tiers of large
sea-going junks lay moored head and stern, side to side, forming a
continuous platform, so that one could walk across their decks out
into the middle of the river. Their masts, without yards or rigging,
loomed like a dense thicket on the horizon. Of their numbers some idea
may be formed when we remember that 1400 of them were found loaded at
one time in 1848 with tribute rice. Of this enormous fleet of ships
and their trade the foreign mercantile community of Shanghai was
content to remain in virtual ignorance. They traded to the north, and
were vaguely spoken of as "Shantung junks"--Shantung then standing for
everything that was unknown north of the thirty-second parallel. The
map of China conveyed about as much to the mercantile communities on
the coast in those days as it did to the British public generally
before the discussions of 1898. These junks carried large quantities
of foreign manufactured goods and opium to the unknown regions at the
back of the north wind, of which some of the doors were now being
opened. How was one to take advantage of the opening, and be first in
the field? Time must be taken by the forelock, and a certain amount of
commercial exploration entered into in order to obtain data on which
to base ulterior operations. Accordingly in the spring of 1859, a few
months before the period fixed for the exchange of ratifications of
the treaty, several mercantile firms equipped, with the utmost
secrecy, trading expeditions to the Gulf of Pechili. Their first
object was to discover what seaport would serve as the entrepot of
Têngchow, since that city, though near enough to salt water to have
been bombarded for a frolic by the Japanese navy in 1894, possessed
no anchorage. The several sets of argonauts, among whom was the writer
of this book, seeking for such an anchorage, found themselves, in the
month of April, all together in the harbour of Yentai, which they
misnamed Chefoo, a name that has become stereotyped. Obviously, then,
that would be the new port, especially as the bay and the town showed
all the signs of a considerable existing traffic. It was full forty
miles from Têngchow, but there was no nearer anchorage. The foreign
visitors began at once to cultivate relations with the native
merchants, tentatively, like Nicodemus, making their real business by
night, while the magnificent daylight was employed in various local
explorations. These were full of fresh interest, the Shantung coast
being the antithesis of the Yangtze delta; for there were found
donkeys instead of boats, stony roads instead of canals, bare and
barren mountains instead of soft green paddy- or cotton-fields, stone
buildings, and a blue air that sparkled like champagne.
Our own particular movable base of operations was one smart English
schooner, loaded with mixed merchandise, and commanded by a sea-dog
who left a trail of vernacular in his wake. Soon, however, we were
able to transfer our flag to a commodious houseboat, of a hybrid type
suited to the sheltered and shallow waters of the Lower Yangtze, but
not, strictly speaking, seaworthy. Next, a Hamburg barque came and
acted as store-ship, releasing the English schooner for more active
service. The master of that craft was also a character, full of
intelligence, but rough, and the trail of tobacco juice was over all,
with strange pungent odours in the cuddy.
Having thus inserted the thin end of the wedge, pegged out mentally
the site of the future settlement, and trifles of that sort, the
pioneers of commerce waited for the official announcement of the port
being opened. Meantime there was the unknown Newchwang to be
discovered, at the extreme north-east corner of the Gulf of Liaotung,
and for this purpose the boat aforesaid presented a very tempting
facility. The trip was accomplished, not without anxiety and detention
on the way by stress of weather, and the British flag was shown in the
Liao river, to the best of our knowledge, for the first time in May
1859. Many other ports and harbours in the gulf were visited during
the summer and autumn. Weihai-wei became very familiar, not as a place
of trade, which it never was, but as a convenient anchorage better
sheltered than Chefoo. How blind were the pioneers to the destinies of
these gulf ports and the gulf itself! How little did they dream of the
scenes that peaceful harbour was to witness, the fortifications which
were to follow, the Chinese navy making its last desperate stand there
like rats caught in a trap; and finally, the British flag flying over
the heights!
The treaty of course was not ratified, though the news of the repulse
of the British plenipotentiary at Taku only reached the pioneers in
the form of tenebrous Chinese rumours with an ominous thread of
consistency running through their various contradictions. The most
conclusive evidence, however, of the turn affairs had taken was the
interference of the officials with the native merchants and people at
Chefoo, whom they forbade intercourse with the foreigners, and made
responsible for the presence of the foreign ships. The ships,
therefore, had to move out of sight, and it was in this predicament
that the harbour of Weihai-wei offered such a welcome refuge.
To put an end to the intolerable suspense in Chefoo the Hamburger was
got under weigh and sailed to the westward. On approaching the mouth
of the Peiho the situation at once revealed itself: not one English
ship visible, but the Russian despatch-boat America, and one United
States ship, with which news was exchanged, and from which the details
of the Taku disaster were ascertained. This news, of course, knocked
all the commercial adventures which had been set on foot in the gulf
into "pie." Nothing remained but to wind them up with as little
sacrifice as possible,--a process which was not completed till towards
Christmas.
The three ports to be opened on the Yangtze stood on quite a different
footing. They had not been named, and their opening was somewhat
contingent on the position of the hostile forces then occupying the
river-banks. The navigation, moreover, was absolutely unknown above
Nanking, and it was left to Captain Sherard Osborn to explore the
channel and to Lord Elgin to make a political reconnaissance at the
same time in H.M.S. Furious, of which cruise Laurence Oliphant has
left us such a delightful description. It was not, however, till 1861
that the great river was formally opened by Admiral Sir James Hope.
Trade then at once burst upon the desolate scene like the blossoms of
spring. On the admiral's voyage up to Hankow, on the 600 miles of
stream scarcely a rag of sail was to be seen. Within three months the
surface of the river was alive with Chinese craft of all sorts and
sizes. The interior of China had for years been dammed up like a
reservoir by the Taipings, so that when once tapped the stream of
commerce gushed out, much beyond the capacity of any existing
transport. The demand for steamers was therefore sudden, and
everything that was able to burn coal was enlisted in the service. The
freight on light goods from Hankow to Shanghai commenced at 20 taels,
or £6, per ton for a voyage of three days. The pioneer inland steamer
was the Fire Dart, which had been built to the order of an American
house for service in the Canton river. She was soon followed by others
built expressly for the Yangtze, and before long regular trade was
carried on. Again the tradition asserted itself of every mercantile
house owning its own river steamer, some more than one. Steamers
proved a mine of wealth for a certain time. Merchants were thereby
enticed into a technical business for which they had neither training
nor aptitude, and the natural consequences were not very long delayed.
While on the subject of river steamers, it is interesting to recall
that in the beginning English merchants sent their orders for the
Yangtze to the United States. The vessels were light, roomy, and
luxurious, admirably adapted to their work. In the course of a few
years, however, the tables were turned, and the Americans themselves
came to the Clyde builders with their specifications, and had their
river steamers built of iron. Many economies and great improvements
have been made in the construction and management of these vessels
since 1861, but we need not pursue the matter into further detail
here.
The opening of the Yangtze made a revolution in the tea trade, for the
product of Central China, which formerly was carried on men's backs
over the Meiling Pass to Canton, could now be brought by water cheaply
and quickly to Hankow, which in the very year of its opening became a
subsidiary shipping port--subsidiary, that is, to Shanghai, where the
ocean voyage began. Before long, however, this great central mart
became an entrepot for ocean traffic. To the steamer Scotland, owned
by Messrs W. S. Lindsay & Co. and commanded by Captain A. D. Dundas,
R.N., belongs the honour of being the first ocean steamer to ascend
the river to Hankow, and thereby opening the interior of China to
direct trade with foreign countries. And within two years a sailing
vessel was towed up the river and loaded a cargo of the new season's
tea for London.
But the most interesting item in the budget of that _annus mirabilis_
1858 was the opening of Japan to foreign intercourse. To
contemporaries it was the discovery of a new world of activity,
intelligence, beauty--an elaborate civilisation built on strange
foundations. Could the veil of the future have been withdrawn for the
men of that day, how their imaginations would have been staggered
before the unrolling of an epic transcending in human interest all the
creations of fiction! But before all things there was trade to be done
with awakening Japan, nobody knew what or how; while the seductive
novelties of the life, the art, the scenery, and the laws contested
the supremacy of the claims of mundane commerce. Here was an ideal
opening for the commercial pioneer. What kind of merchandise would the
Japanese buy, and what had they to sell, were naturally the first
objects of inquiry. For this purpose ships with trial cargoes had to
be sent hither and thither to explore, and there was work here for the
kind of handy craft that had had such a run on the China coast. By
their means was the foreign trade of the Japanese ports opened to the
world. The clipper ship Mirage, laden with Manchester goods in which
the late Sir John Pender was interested, lay several days in Shanghai
waiting orders to proceed on an experimental trip to Japan as early as
1858, but the owners wisely concluded that the venture would be
premature.
So far we have dealt only with what may be considered as the outriders
of the host, and the subject would be very incomplete without giving
some account of the main body, the common carriers of the
international trade, filling by far the most important place in the
economical system of the countries of their origin. While endeavouring
to confine our attention as much as possible within the limits of the
field embraced by the China, developing later into the Far Eastern,
trade, the progress of the merchant shipping employed therein cannot
be fully understood except from a standpoint more cosmopolitan. For
the history of the Eastern shipping is intimately bound up with events
which were taking place in other and widely-separated quarters of the
globe in the middle of this century. Within the space of three to four
years events happened of a world-moving character, forming the basis
of the commercial revolution that has set its mark on the second half
of the century. The catholicity of commerce and its unfailing
inventiveness in supplying human wants were wonderfully illustrated at
this time. Events so different in their nature as the potato blight
in one hemisphere, the production of gold in another, and the
abrogation of the Navigation Laws in England, combined within these
few years to revolutionise the world's shipping trade.
In the year 1847 the world was first startled by the definitive
announcement of gold discoveries in California, and four years later a
similar phenomenon appeared in Australia. Coincidently with these
events the first Universal Exhibition of the industries of all nations
was held in Hyde Park, and whatever we may think of the relative
influence of that and of the gold discoveries, there can be but one
opinion as to the splendid advertisement which the Exposition lent to
the golden promise of the Antipodes and the East Pacific. Thenceforth
the whole world, industrial, commercial, and financial, beat with one
pulse, a fact which has received constantly accumulating illustrations
until the present day. It was as if the sectional divisions of the
globe had been united in one great pool, forced to maintain a common
level, subject only to disturbances of the nature of rising and
falling waves. The new supplies of gold, by making money plentiful,
inflated the price of all commodities and stimulated production in
every department of agriculture and manufacture; but the time-worn yet
ever-new passion for wealth, disseminated afresh throughout the
civilised world, probably acted more powerfully on the material
progress of mankind than the actual possession of the new riches. The
rapid peopling of desert places created a demand for the necessaries
of life--food, clothing, housing, tools, and appliances of every
description. In a word, the tide of humanity, rushing to America for
food and to the goldfields for the means of buying it, made such calls
on the carrying powers of the world as could not be satisfied without
a stupendous effort.
Of all nations the most responsive to the stimulus was beyond doubt
the United States: it was there that shipbuilding had been making the
most gigantic advances. The total tonnage afloat under the American
flag bade fair at one time to rival that of Great Britain. The
attention of the American shipping interest had been particularly
directed towards China, where excellent employment rewarded the
enterprise, not only in the ocean voyage out and home, but also in the
coasting trade, which included the portable and very paying item of
opium. English merchants and shipowners did not, of course, resign
their share in the China trade without a struggle; but they were
fighting on the defensive, and under the disadvantages incidental to
that condition of warfare. Every improvement they introduced in the
efficiency of their ships in order to cope with the advances of their
rivals was promptly followed by a counter-move which gave the
wide-awake Americans again the lead. About 1845 an important step
forward was taken in the despatch of a new type of vessel from the
United States to China which surpassed in speed the newest and best
English ships. The British reply to this was the building of clippers,
initiated in 1846 by Messrs Hall of Aberdeen. The first of these, a
small vessel, having proved successful in competing for the coasting
trade of China, larger ships of the clipper type were constructed, and
so the seesaw went on.
Then emigration to the United States, chiefly from Ireland, made
demands on the available tonnage which was indifferently met by
vessels unfit for the work, and the American builders were not slow to
see the advantage of placing a superior class of vessel on this
important Atlantic service.
Following close on this salutary competition--East and West--came one
of the epoch-making events just alluded to, the gold-mining in
California, which more decisively than ever threw the advantage in the
shipping contest on the side of the United States. The ocean was the
true route to California for emigrants and material; but the voyage
was long, and impatience of intervening space being the ruling temper
of gold-seekers, the shortening of the time of transit became a crying
want for the living cargoes, and scarcely less for the perishable
provisions which the new ships were designed to carry. Speed, comfort,
and capacity had therefore to be combined in a way which had never
before been attempted. The result was the historical American clipper
of the middle of the century, beautiful to look on with her cloud of
white cotton canvas, covering every ocean highway. These were vessels
of large capacity, carrying one-half more dead-weight than their
registered tonnage;[28] built and rigged like yachts, and attaining a
speed never before reached on the high seas. The pioneer of this fine
fleet made the voyage from New York to San Francisco, a "coasting
voyage" from which foreign flags were excluded, and returned direct in
ballast, the owners realising a handsome profit on the outward passage
alone. The Americans not only had the Californian trade practically
in their own hands, but were prompt to turn the advantage which that
gave them to profitable account in the competition for the trade of
China. The ships, when empty, sailed across the Pacific, loading, at
Canton or Shanghai, tea and other produce for London or New York, the
three-cornered voyage occupying little more time than the direct route
to China and back to which English ships were then confined. As the
American clippers earned on the round about a third more freight than
English ships could obtain on their out-and-home voyage, competition
bore very hard on the latter. Larger and finer ships were constantly
being added to the American fleet until they almost monopolised the
trade not only between New York and San Francisco, but also between
China and Great Britain. British shipping was, in fact, reduced to the
greatest depression, the falling off in the supply of new tonnage
being almost commensurate with the increase of that of the United
States. A phenomenal advance was recorded also in the entries of
foreign ships into British ports to the displacement of British-owned
tonnage.
It was at this most critical juncture that the heroic remedy of repeal
of the Navigation Laws in 1850 consigned British shipowners to
absolute despair; for if they could not hold their own while protected
by these laws, how were they to survive the removal of the last
barrier from the competition of the whole world? But the darkest hour
was, as often happens, that before the dawn. The withdrawal of
protective legislation proved the turning-point in the fortunes of the
British shipowner. In part it was an efficient cause, inasmuch as it
threw the shipowner entirely on his own resources for his existence.
He had to look to improvements in the efficiency and economy of his
ships, for which it must be admitted there was considerable room.
There were many conservative prejudices to be got rid of--that one,
for example, which held it dangerous to have less than one foot in
breadth to four in length, the adherence to which rendered British
ships oval tubs compared with the American, which had for many years
been proving the superiority of five and even six to one. The English
axiom, which had so long resisted plain reason, had at last to yield
to necessity. And so with many other antiquated conditions, including
the quality and qualifications of masters, officers, and seamen.
The exertions made in Great Britain to improve merchant shipping were
at once stimulated and immeasurably assisted by the gold discoveries
in Australia, an island in the South Pacific more absolutely dependent
on sea communication than San Francisco on the American continent had
been. It was, moreover, in British territory, where no exclusive
privileges could be enjoyed, and where competition was entirely
unfettered. Of course the clipper fleet of the United States was
prepared to do for Australia what it had done so well for California;
but the prospect of the carrying trade between Great Britain and her
colonies falling into alien hands aroused the spirit of the English to
make a supreme effort to at least hold their own, if not to recover
lost ground.
The seven seas soon became alive with rival clipper ships of great
size and power, and the newspapers chronicled the runs they made to
Australia and California in days, as they now record the hours
consumed on steamer voyages across the Atlantic. Ancient barriers
seemed to be submerged, and fusion of the ocean traffic of the world
into one great whole opened the way to a new dispensation in the
history of merchant shipping. Tonnage was tonnage all the world over,
and became subject to the comprehensive control in which the gold and
silver produced in distant countries was held by the great financial
centres. But the ocean telegraph was not yet, and for twenty years
more many gaps were left in the system of ocean communications, whence
resulted seasons of plethora alternating with scarcity in particular
lines of traffic.
There was probably no trade in which the overflow of the new output of
tonnage was more quickly felt than in that of China. It became a
common custom for vessels of moderate size which had carried goods and
emigrants to Australia and California, whence no return cargoes were
at that period to be had, to proceed to India or China in
ballast--"seeking." This was a source of tonnage supply which the
merchants resident in those countries had no means of reckoning upon,
though such a far-reaching calculation might not be beyond the powers
of a clear head posted at one of the foci of the commercial world. An
example may be quoted illustrative of the local tonnage famine which
occasionally prevailed during that transition period. An English ship
arrived in ballast at Hongkong from Sydney in 1854. The owner's local
agent, or "consignee," recommended the captain to proceed at once
north to Shanghai, where, according to latest advices, he would be
sure to obtain a lading at a high rate of freight. The cautious
skipper demurred to taking such a risk, and refused to move unless the
agent would guarantee him £6, 10s. per ton for a full cargo for
London. This was agreed. The ship reached the loading port at a moment
when there was no tonnage available and much produce waiting shipment,
and she was immediately filled up at about £7 or £8 per ton. It fell
to the lot of this particular vessel, by the way, to carry a mail from
Hongkong to Shanghai, the P. and O. Company's service being then only
monthly, and no other steamer being on the line. It was just after the
outbreak of the war with Russia. About a couple of days after the
departure of the Akbar--for that was her name--when it was considered
quite safe to do so, a resident American merchant, unable to contain
himself, boasted of having sent by this English vessel the despatches
of the Russian admiral under sealed cover to a sure hand in Shanghai.
The recipient of this confidence, like a good patriot, reported the
circumstance promptly to the governor of the colony, and he to the
senior naval officer, who with no less promptitude ordered a steam
sloop, the Rattler, to proceed in chase of the ship. The pursuit was
successful; the Russian despatches were taken out and brought back to
Hongkong, where they were submitted to the polyglot governor, Sir John
Bowring.
Another incident of the same period will show how it was possible for
a bold operator to exploit the tonnage of the world on a considerable
scale without the aid of the telegraph, or even of rapid communication
by letter. One such operator in London, reckoning up the prospective
supply and demand of tonnage throughout the world, foresaw this very
scarcity in China of which we have just given an illustration. He
thereupon proceeded to charter ships under various flags and engaged
in distant voyages to proceed in ballast to the China ports, there to
load cargoes for Europe. The wisdom of the operation was far from
clear to the charterer's agents in China when they heard of ships
coming to them from the four quarters of the world at a time when
freights were low, with but little prospect of improvement, so far as
they could see; but their outlook was circumscribed. Though as the
ships began to arrive the difficulty of providing profitable
freightage seemed to presage the ruin of the venture, yet subsequent
arrivals justified the prevision of its author by earning for him
highly remunerative freights. The tide had really risen as it had been
foreseen; but it soon receded, and before the last charter had been
fulfilled the time-factor, which is fatal to so many well-laid
schemes, interposed, and probably caused the early profits to be
swallowed up in the final losses.
The bulk of the China traffic, however, was carried not by these
erratic outsiders but by the regular traders, which loaded in London,
Liverpool, or New York with manufactured goods, coal, and metals, and
returned from China with tea, silk, and other produce. It must have
been a profitable business, for the average freight homeward in the
'Forties and 'Fifties seems to have been about £5 per ton; and if we
allow even one-third of that for the outward voyage, it would give the
shipowner somewhere about £7 for the round voyage, which was
accomplished with ease within the twelve months. It must be
remembered, however, that the expenses of running were proportionately
high on the small vessels which were then in the trade. In the course
of time, when speed and facilities of despatch at home and abroad had
been further improved, the clippers from London took in Australia in
the outward voyage by way of filling up the time until the tea crop
was brought to market.
When the great increase in the export of silk took place a special
rate was paid on it to favourite ships on account of its high value.
But though this precious article could afford, when necessary, extreme
rates of freight, its total bulk was too small--about one-tenth of
that of tea--to affect seriously the general carrying trade of China.
A certain quantity was regularly shipped by the "overland route"--that
is, by P. and O. Company's steamers to Suez, and thence by rail to
Alexandria, to be there reshipped for its ultimate destination,
Marseilles or Southampton. But the capacity of the steamers was so
small that only a _pro rata_ allotment of space was made to
applicants, and the freight charged for it was at the rate of £25 per
ton. Under exceptional conditions one sailing ship in the year 1856
carried a silk cargo of 6000 bales, valued at £750,000 sterling, which
was said to be the largest amount ever ventured, up to that time, in
any merchant vessel. It was so unexpectedly large that the shippers
were unable fully to cover their risk by insurance. A singular
fatality attended the outset of this voyage, showing the fallibility
of human judgment even under the most favourable circumstances. The
commander of this ship had been perhaps the most successful in the
China trade, and it was the extraordinary confidence that was placed
in his judgment that induced the merchants to intrust to his care
merchandise of such enormous value. Though much impressed with the
sense of personal responsibility for its safety, he was yet tempted by
a fine starlit night to break ground from the anchorage at Shanghai
and drop down the river to Wusung, where he touched on the well-known
bar, and was passed by the outward-bound mail-steamer the following
morning. The ship was of course reported "on shore," and so the
letters ordering insurance which the mail-steamer carried were
rendered useless. The master, though the ship had lain but a few hours
on soft mud, dared not proceed to sea with such a valuable cargo
without examining the ship's bottom. To do this he had to be towed
back to Shanghai, fourteen miles by river, discharge, strip off the
copper, replace it, reload the cargo, and recommence the voyage. It
proved much the longest she had ever made, and there was great anxiety
among the merchants, especially among those of them who were only
partially insured. But as fate would have it, while the ship was on
the high seas her cargo was growing in value, the silk famine in
Europe having in the mean time clearly declared itself; so that what
with the delay of a month or two at the start and several weeks more
on the passage, a time was gained for sufficient profit to accrue on
the silk to lay the foundation of several respectable fortunes, and
the commander, to whose error of judgment the result was due, was
received in London with acclamation and with substantial gratuities
from some of the fortunate owners of his cargo. The lucky craft was
the Challenger, Captain Killick, which had distinguished herself in
racing against the American clipper Nightingale in 1852 and 1863, and
was the first sailing-vessel to load tea at Hankow in 1863,--a
historic ship.
During the time of the deepest gloom in shipping circles, consequent
on the repeal of the Navigation Laws, at a meeting where the ruin of
the industry was proclaimed in chorus by the shipowners present, one
man had the courage to rise up and stem the current of depression.
"The British shipowners have at last sat down to play a fair and open
game with the Americans, and, by Jove! we will trump them," were the
words of Mr Richard Green, the eminent shipbuilder of Blackwall, as
quoted by Mr W. S. Lindsay in his 'History of Merchant Shipping.' Mr
Lindsay adds that Mr Green was as good as his word, for shortly after
he built, to the order of Mr Hamilton Lindsay, a China merchant, the
ship Challenger, of 600 or 700 tons, expressly to match the American
Challenge, more than double her size, and thought to be the fastest
ship then afloat. Though the two never met, the performances of the
English, whether for speed or for dry carrying, quite eclipsed the
American ship. It was with another competitor that the pioneer
Blackwall clipper tried conclusions, and the circumstance suggests a
somewhat whimsical association of the evolution of the China clipper
with the Great Exhibition. A ship of exquisite model and finish had
been built in America for the purpose of conveying visitors to that
great gathering. She was put into the China trade, for which by her
size she was well suited. Whether by prearrangement or not, she met
the Challenger in 1852 in Shanghai, where they were both laden with
tea simultaneously. Immense excitement was aroused, which took the
usual form of heavy wagers between the respective partisans on the
issue of the race to London. It was a close thing, as sportsmen say,
the British ship coming in two days ahead of her rival. Dissatisfied,
as the owner of a yacht or of a racehorse is apt to be with his
defeat, certain changes were made by the owners of the Nightingale in
her equipment for the next year's voyage. The race was again run from
the same port, on the same conditions--and with the same result, only
still more in favour of the English ship.
A general excitement about such a trivial matter as the relative speed
of two ships was only to be accounted for by the awakening
consciousness of the significance of the English shipping revival
which was then beginning. The interest extended much beyond the circle
of those directly concerned. The deck of a mail steamer, to take an
instance, became suddenly animated as the signals of a sailing-vessel
were read out. Speaking a ship at sea was no such unusual occurrence,
but when the name of Challenger was passed round, passengers and crew
rushed to the side, gazing intently on the shapely black hull and
white sails reflecting the morning sun. She was in the Straits of
Malacca, on her way back to China to run her second heat. A young man
among the passengers betraying ignorance of the cause of the commotion
felt as small as if unable to name the last Derby winner. The world at
that time seemed to have grown young. Imagination was directed to a
dawn gilded with promise which the sequel has surely not belied!
Thus the China Sea became a principal battle-ground whereon the
struggle for ascendancy between the ships of Great Britain and the
United States was most strenuously fought out. It was, as Mr Green
said, a fair and open contest, alike creditable to both sides, and an
unmixed benefit to the world at large. The energy of the English
shipping interest was thoroughly aroused, and the shipowners and
shipbuilders of Scotland came speedily to the front. In a few years
after the issue was joined between the United States and Great
Britain, the shipbuilders of the latter country found a potent
auxiliary in iron, which began to be used for sailing-ships.[29] The
vessel that led the way in this innovation, combining great speed with
the other conditions of success, was the Lord of the Isles, Captain
Maxton, of Greenock, which distinguished herself by beating two of the
fastest American clippers of twice her size in the run from Foochow to
London in 1856. The gradual introduction of steam on long voyages,
which followed the free use of iron, was also to the advantage of the
British competitors; and thus from a combination of favouring
circumstances and dogged efforts to turn them to account, the
ascendancy of British shipping was finally established.
* * * * *
In sketching the performances of these vessels we have somewhat
anticipated the advent of that famous fleet of tea clippers which
commanded the traffic of the Far East for something like fifteen
years. For the beginnings of that struggle we have to go back to the
year 1851, when the Leith clipper Ganges raced two Americans, the
Flying Cloud and Bald Eagle, from China to London, finishing up with
an interesting tack-and-tack contest up Channel from Weymouth, the
English ship passing Dungeness six hours ahead. At that period the
odds in mere numbers were so overwhelming against the English vessels
that such occasional victories as the above were calculated to inspire
the builders with courage to persevere. The Aberdeen clippers,
Stornoway, Chrysolite, and Cairngorm, worthily followed the
London-built Challenger in disputing the prize of speed with the best
of their American contemporaries; and after the race of 1856, won, as
has been mentioned, by the iron ship Lord of the Isles of Greenock,
the American flag was practically eliminated from the annual contest.
Competition, however, by no means slackened on that account, but
rather increased in intensity. Past achievements opened the eyes of
those interested to the possibilities of indefinite improvement in the
build, rig, and equipment of ships, so that the idea took root and
became a passion. Each year brought forth something new, giving birth
in the following year to something still newer, until a type of ship
was evolved which seemed to be the acme of design and execution.
British clippers raced against each other for the blue ribbon of the
ocean with as great zest as they had ever done when other flags were
in the field.
The competition for speed received a great stimulus from the opening
of Foochow as a regular tea-shipping port in 1856. The port had been
hindered by official restrictions from enjoying its natural advantages
at an earlier period, and it was mainly due to the enterprise of the
leading American house that these obstacles were at last removed and
the produce of the Bohea hills diverted to its proper outlet. The
event marked an epoch in the tea trade; for Foochow being so much
closer to the plantations than the other two ports, it became possible
to put on board there the first growth of the season with a prospect
of landing the new teas in London a couple of months earlier than the
trade had been accustomed to. It may be mentioned as one of the
curiosities of conservatism that this very circumstance was used to
the commercial prejudice of shipments from the new port. It was
revolutionising the established routine of the trade, would interfere
with the summer holidays, and it was gravely argued that October was
the very earliest time when the London buyers could be induced to
attend to the tea-market. But the fragrance of the new tea was
irresistible in dispersing such cobwebs. So far from its coming too
early to market, the best shipbuilders in the world were soon engaged
in constructing ships that would accelerate the arrival of the new tea
by as much as a couple of days. And so hungry was the trade that
special arrangements were made to facilitate the brokers obtaining
samples to sell by before the vessel passed Gravesend, and he would be
an obscure grocer who was not able to display in his shop window a
tea-chest bearing the name of the clipper on the day following her
arrival in the dock. The annual tea-race from Foochow thus became one
of the events of the year. Premiums were paid to the winner, and
sliding scales of freight were in course of time introduced, graduated
by the number of days on passage.
No better proof could be adduced of the high excellence of the ships
as well as of the good seamanship of their commanders than the
exceeding closeness of the running on that long ocean voyage of twelve
thousand miles. Several times it happened that vessels starting
together would see nothing of each other during the hundred days'
passage until the fog lifting in the Downs would reveal them close
together, from which point the winning of the race depended on the
pilot or the tug. Of the great race of 1866 Mr W. S. Lindsay, from
whose valuable work on Merchant Shipping we have drawn freely for
these details, says: "This race excited extraordinary interest among
all persons engaged in maritime affairs. Five ships started--the
Ariel, Taeping, Serica, Fiery Cross, and Taitsing. The three first
left Foochow on the same day, but lost sight of each other for the
whole voyage until they reached the English Channel, where they again
met, arriving in the Thames within a few hours of each other." Very
fast passages continued to be made after that time. The Ariel and
Spindrift raced in 1868, and the Titania made a quick run in 1871; but
Mr Lindsay awards the palm to the Sir Lancelot and Thermopylæ as "the
two fastest sailing-ships that ever traversed the ocean." The former
vessel, 886 tons register, made the run from Foochow to London in
ninety days in 1868, and an interesting fact is recorded by the owners
of that fine ship bearing on the propelling power of sails. Many
experienced navigators had during the clipper-racing entertained
misgivings as to the value of the excessive amount of sail and the
heavy rig which were deemed necessary to the equipment of a clipper.
The ships, they said, "buried themselves under the press of canvas."
Writing seven years after the performance just mentioned, the owner
of the Sir Lancelot said: "After the mania for China clipper-sailing I
had 8 feet cut off from all the lower masts, and reduced the masts
aloft and the yards in proportion. Yet with that (and no doubt a
proportionately reduced crew) she maintained her speed undiminished."
This was not an uncommon experience.[30]
It is not to be supposed that the produce of China or the imports into
the country were all carried by clipper ships. Theirs was a special
service reserved for the most valuable produce and for the first few
weeks of the season. After that fitful fever the trade of the year
settled down to what may be called daily-bread conditions, when ships
with moderate speed, large capacity, and frugally sailed, made steady
and substantial profits for their owners. It is a commonly accepted
maxim that the race--for profits, at all events--is not always to the
swift. It was a saying of Mr Green, whose firm owned a large fleet of
ships in the Australian and Indian trade, that in his balance-sheet
for the year he found that his slow ships had paid for his fast ones.
Nor did this economic rule lose its validity when steam came to
supersede sail.
The clippers proper had not had a clear run of fifteen years when
steamers began to trespass on their preserves. The possibility of a
successful steam voyage round the Cape began to be proved in 1864,
and was demonstrated in 1866, when Mr Alfred Holt of Liverpool first
established his "blue-funnel" line, beginning with the Ajax, Achilles,
and Agamemnon. But though sailing clippers were displaced, the
sporting element in the China trade was not extinguished. The opening
of the Yangtze revived the interest in early arrivals of tea by
bringing the "black leafs" of Hunan and Hupeh to the sea nearly as
soon as the "red leafs," whose outlet was Foochow. The produce of the
central provinces up till 1861 was conveyed by a slow and expensive
route, a considerable portion of it on the backs of porters, to
Canton. Hankow when opened became at once the entrepot for these teas,
and sea-going ships began to load their cargoes in the very heart of
the Chinese empire. For some years there had been two sets of
races--one from Foochow and one from Hankow--which took the wind out
of each other's sails, and the sport became somewhat stale.
It was the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, and the consequent
improvements in the construction of steamships, that gave its full
value to the Yangtze as a trade route. For then ocean steamers loaded
at Hankow with all the advantages of the short route and convenient
coaling-stations, and the old excitement of the Foochow racing was
revived under a still higher pressure. Every year witnessed some new
design for combining the maximum cargo and coal stowage with the
maximum speed, so that new tea, which but a few years before was
landed in November, now came to market early in July. The last great
race occurred in 1883 between the Glenogle and Stirling Castle. By
that time Indian tea was rapidly gaining the ascendant in the great
consuming marts, displacing the Chinese article, which could no longer
afford the prestige of being carried by steamers built and run
regardless of expense. Thenceforth all Far Eastern produce found an
everyday level; merchandise was carried to and fro by regular lines,
with measured intervals of sailing, all the year round, freights were
fixed by common agreement, and the trade assumed a character of an
omnibus traffic on a large scale.
The Suez Canal produced an immense lateral extension of trade with
China by bringing the Black Sea, Mediterranean, and North Sea ports
into direct communication with the ports of the Far East. The Russian
volunteer fleet, composed of very large and swift steamers, each
capable of conveying 2000 troops, carried tea direct from Hankow to
Odessa. Trade with Marseilles and Genoa was developed by British and
German enterprise as well as by the Messageries Maritimes of France.
Antwerp, Bremen, and Hamburg became the terminal ports for important
lines of steamers. The mercantile navy of Japan had not risen into
general notice during the earlier time with which we are principally
concerned, and it would deserve a treatise by itself.
* * * * *
By a process of natural selection native shipping in China and Japan
has been extensively superseded by foreign, and an immense dislocation
of capital has in consequence taken place. The effect of this has been
severely felt on the China coast, especially in such large shipping
ports as Taku, Shanghai, and Ningpo, where there were in former days
large and prosperous shipowning communities. The disturbance has
probably been much less marked in Japan, owing to the greater agility
of the people in adapting themselves to inevitable changes. Certain it
is that in both countries there is still a large junk fleet employed
in the coasting trade, being protected against foreign as well as
steam competition by their light draught and their privilege of
trading at ports not opened to foreign trade.
The temptation to evade the prohibition of foreign flags led in former
days to sundry bizarre effects on the coast of China. The natives,
finding it to their advantage to employ foreign vessels, exercised
their ingenuity in making them look like Chinese craft. This would at
first sight appear no easy matter, seeing that the Chinese junks
carried no yards and their hulls were of a construction as different
from that of a modern ship as was possible for two things to be which
were intended for the same purpose. The junks possessed certain
qualities conducive to buoyancy and safety, such as water-tight
bulkheads, which at once strengthened the hull and minimised the
danger of sinking. But their sailing properties, except with the wind
"free," were beneath contempt. Their weatherly and seaworthy qualities
commended vessels of foreign construction to the Chinese traders,
while the talisman of the flag was deemed by them a protection against
pirates, and perhaps also, on occasion, against official inquisition.
Probably what on the whole the native owner or charterer would have
preferred was that his ship should pass for foreign at sea and for
native in port. To this end in some cases resort was had to
hermaphrodite rigging, and very generally to two projecting boards,
one on each side of the figurehead, bearing the staring Chinese eye,
such as the junks south of the Yangtze carry. The open eye on the
ship's bow was to enable the Chinese port officials to close theirs to
the unauthorised presence of strangers, and thus everything was
arranged in the manner so dear to the Chinese character.
In the south of China the advantage of the flag was sought without the
foreign appearance of the vessel. The foreign flag was hoisted on
native-built small craft, a large fleet of which hailed from Macao
under Portuguese colours, and were from time to time guilty of great
irregularities on the coast. The Chinese of Hongkong, British subjects
born and bred, registered their vessels and received colonial sailing
letters, renewable at frequent intervals, as a check on bad behaviour.
With these papers short trips were made along the south coast, and a
local trade was carried on in the estuary of the Canton river. These
vessels of about 100 or 200 tons burthen were called "lorchas," of
which we shall hear more in subsequent chapters.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[27] For interesting details of the smuggling organisation which
lasted up to the middle of the present century, see 'Smuggling Days
and Smuggling Ways,' by the Hon. Henry N. Shore, R.N.
[28] The modern ship carries 70 to 75 per cent of dead-weight over her
registered tonnage, and of weight and measurement combined about
double.
[29] The American and British clippers were originally built of wood
sheathed with metal. After that came trial of iron ships coated with
tallow, but finally at the climax of the sailing clippers' notable
races they were all of composite construction--_i.e._, iron frames
planked with wood and sheathed with yellow metal. This type of vessel
(now out of date) was the essential feature of the fastest sailing
China clippers. Thereupon followed the iron and steel steamship as the
permanent carrier, and the white-winged argosies were no more!
[30] Mr James MacCunn of Greenock says that all these racing clippers,
which were practically the same size, carried double crews, numbering
about thirty-three all told, equal to that of a 2500-tons merchantman
of to-day. The Sir Lancelot, besides the shingle ballast below the
tea, carried 100 tons fitted kentledge in the limbers stowed between
skin and ceiling, whereby great "stiffness" was ensured--a factor of
much value in beating down the China Sea against the monsoon, and at
other times in "carrying on" under a heavy press of canvas.