THE TRADERS.
I. FOREIGN.
Their relations to their official representatives -- And to
the trading interests of their own countries -- Their unity
-- High character -- Liberality -- Breadth of view.
In the preceding portions of this narrative it has been shown how much
the character of the principal officials on both sides influenced the
progress of events. There was, however, yet another factor which
contributed in a lesser degree and in a different manner to the
general result which ought not to be entirely omitted from
consideration, and that was the personal qualities and traditional
characteristics of the two trading communities, foreign and Chinese.
It was they who created the subject-matter of all foreign relations,
and stood in the breach in all the struggles between foreign and
native officials. It was their persons and their fortunes which were
ever at stake; it was they who first felt the shock of disturbance,
and were the first to reap the fruits of peace.
The relation of the foreign mercantile community to their official
representatives was not always free from friction, because the same
high authority which enjoined on the officials the protection of the
persons and the promotion of the interests of the lay community
empowered them also to rule over these their _protégés_, and to apply
to them an arbitrary discipline in accordance with what they conceived
to be the exigencies of the time. Duty in such circumstances must
often have assumed a divided aspect, and rules of action must
frequently have been put to a severe strain; nor is it surprising
that, owing to these peculiar relationships, the resident communities
should not have been able on all occasions to see eye to eye with the
agents of their Governments.
In their national and representative character the China merchants
were wont at different crises to have moral burdens laid on them which
did not properly fit their shoulders. They were little affected by the
shallow moralism of the pulpit, which, taken literally, would have
counselled general liquidation and the distribution of the proceeds
among the poor, leaving the common creditor out of account; but
official sermons also were on certain occasions preached to, or at,
the merchants, implying some obligation on their part to sacrifice
individual advantage to the greater good of the greater number. Were
there no other answer to such altruistic monitions, it would be
sufficient to plead that under such theories of duty commerce could
not exist, and its political accessories would become superfluous. No
road to commercial prosperity has been discovered which could dispense
with the prime motive for the exertion which makes for progress--to
wit, individual ambition, cupidity, or by whatever term we choose to
designate the driving power of the complex machine of civilised life.
Mammon is, after all, a divinity whose worship is as universal as
that of Eros, and is scarcely less essential to the preservation of
the race. Nor is it by collective, but by strictly individual,
offerings that these deities are propitiated, and the high purposes of
humanity subserved. It is no reproach, therefore, to the China
merchants that they should have seized every opportunity for gain,
totally irrespective of the general policy of their country. It was
not for them to construe portents, but to improve the shining hour.
And if it should at any time happen that the action of private
persons, impelled by the passion for gain, embarrassed a diplomatist
in his efforts to bring about some grand international combination,
the fault was clearly his who omitted to take account of the ruling
factor in all economic problems. The trade was not made for Government
policy, but the policy for the trade, whose life-blood was absolute
liberty of action and a free course for individual initiative. The
success of British trade as a whole could only be the aggregate of the
separate successes not otherwise attainable than by each member of the
mercantile fraternity performing his own part with singleness of
purpose. Nothing certainly could ever justify any trader in foregoing
a chance of gain for the sake of an ideal benefit to the community,
even if it were likely to be realised. A distinction must be drawn
between the tradesman and the statesman. Though their functions may
sometimes overlap, their respective duties to the State are of a
different though complementary character.
To the charge which from time to time has been levelled at the China
merchants, that they were too narrow and too selfish, it may be
plausibly replied that, on the contrary, they were if anything too
broad; for their individual interests were not so bound up with
general progress as are the interests of colonists in a new country,
where co-operation is essential. Progress meant, to the China
merchants, the admitting of the flood of competition, which they were
in no condition to meet. The general interests of the country required
the opening of new markets; in a lesser degree the interests of the
manufacturing section required the same thing; but the interests of
the merchants, albeit they appeared to represent their country and its
industries, were in fact opposed to expansion. Yet so strong in them
was the race instinct for progress that their private advantage has
oftentimes actually given way to it, so that we have seen throughout
the developments of foreign intercourse with China the resident
merchants placing themselves in the van in helping to let loose the
avalanche which overwhelmed them and brought fresh adventurers to
occupy the ground.
Nor has the relation of the merchants, even to the operations in which
they were engaged, been always clearly understood. Although they
personified their national trade in the eyes of the world, the
merchants were never anything more than the vehicles for its
distribution, having no interest in its general extension, though a
powerful interest in the increase of their individual share. The
productions which provided the livelihood of many thousands of people
in China, and perhaps of a still larger number in Great Britain and
other manufacturing countries, did not concern them. A percentage by
way of toll on merchandise passing through their warehouses was the
limit of their ambition. A clear distinction should therefore be
drawn between the merchant and the producer or manufacturer; on which
point some observations of Wingrove Cooke[31] are worth quoting:--
"The calculations of the merchants do not extend beyond their own
business. Why should they? Fortunately for himself, the merchant's
optics are those of the lynx rather than those of the eagle. An
extremely far-sighted commercial man must always run risks of
bankruptcy, for the most absolutely certain sequences are often the
most uncertain in point of time." The same writer, however, comments
on the ignorance and narrowness of both British traders and
manufacturers, and their failure to avail themselves of the
opportunities offered to them of exploiting the trading resources of
the Chinese. "There is no spirit of inquiry abroad," he says, "no
energy at work, no notion of distracting the eye for a moment from
watching those eternal shirtings, no thought whether you cannot make
better shift with some other class of goods. Manchester made a great
blind effort when the ports were opened, and that effort failed. Since
then she has fallen into an apathy, and trusts to the chapter of
accidents." As for the merchants on whom manufacturers relied to push
the sale of their wares, "they come out here," he says, "to make
fortunes in from five to seven years, not to force English calicoes up
into remote places. Their work is to buy Chinese produce, but," he
goes on, "if the English manufacturer wants extraordinary exertion,
carefully collected information, and persevering up-country
enterprise--and this is what he does want--he must do it himself. The
British export trade will not maintain mercantile houses, but it would
pay for travelling agents acting in immediate connection with the home
manufacturers, who should keep their principals at home well informed,
and who should work their operations through the established houses
here. The evil is that British goods are not brought under the eyes of
the Chinaman of the interior cities."
The inaccuracies of some of these comments need not obscure the shrewd
and prophetic character of the general advice tendered to the British
manufacturers. After an interval of forty years they have begun to act
upon it, and though their progress has as yet been slow, they are
taking to heart another portion of Mr Cooke's advice, that "all
dealing with the interior of China is impossible unless your agents
speak the language of the people."
A certain divergence between the official and non-official view of
affairs had begun to show itself in the period before the war. Before
the close of the East India Company's monopoly the independent
merchants perceived that their interests, as well as those of the
Company itself, were prejudiced by the truckling tactics of its
agents, and though few in number, the mercantile community began to
give utterance to their grievances and to show they had a mind of
their own on public commercial policy. As the whole position of
foreigners in China rested on premisses which were essentially false,
disappointment, irritation, and alarm were chronic. Every one
concerned, official and unofficial, was aggrieved thereby, while no
one was disposed to accept blame for the grievance. A tendency to
recrimination was the natural consequence. When their representatives
failed to protect them against the aggressions of the Chinese the
merchants complained, while the officials in their turn were not
indisposed to retort by alleging provocative or injudicious conduct on
the part of the merchants themselves as contributory to the
ever-recurrent difficulties. Through the retrospective vista of two
generations it is easy now to see where both parties were at
fault--the merchants in making too little account of the difficulties
under which their representatives were labouring, and the officials in
failing to perceive that the causes of their disagreements with the
Chinese lay altogether deeper than the casual imprudence of any
private individual, even if that could be established. The despatches
of the earlier "superintendents," notably those of Sir George
Robinson, betray a certain jealousy of the political influence
supposed to be wielded by the mercantile community of Canton working
through their associations in England, and the superintendents seemed
therefore concerned to cast discredit on mercantile opinion. It would
have been strange enough, had it been true, that an isolated community
of a hundred individuals should be torn by faction, yet it is a fact
that on their assumed disagreements an argument was based for
invalidating the representations which they occasionally made to the
Home Government. Their views were disparaged, their motives impugned,
and their short-sighted selfishness deplored. The note struck in 1835
has been maintained with variations down almost to our own day,--a
circumstance which has to be borne in mind by those who aim at a fair
appreciation of British relations with China during the last sixty
years.
Far, however, from being a disunited flock, the mercantile body in
China generally have on the whole been singularly unanimous in their
views of the political transactions with which their interests were
bound up; while as to the old community of Canton, no epithet could be
less appropriate than one which would imply discord. Concord was the
enforced effect of their circumstances. Imprisoned within a narrow
space, surrounded by a hostile people, exposed to a constant common
peril, the foreign residents in Canton were bound to each other by the
mere instinct of self-preservation. They became, in fact, what Nelson
called his captains, a "band of brothers." The exclusion of females up
till 1842, and the deterrent conditions of married life there even
under the treaty, made it essentially a bachelor community, living
almost like one family, or as comrades in a campaign. Of the
disinterested hospitality and good-fellowship which continue to this
day, even in the maturity of their domestic development, to
characterise the foreign communities in China, the germ is doubtless
to be discovered in that primitive society which oscillated between
Canton and Macao during the thirty years which ended in 1856, in which
year their factories were for the last time destroyed, and the old
life finally broken up.
But there is something more to be credited to these early residents
than the mutual loyalty prescribed for them by the peculiar conditions
of their life. They exemplified in a special degree the true temper
and feelings of gentlemen,--a moral product with which local
conditions had also, no doubt, something to do. They lived in glass
houses, with open doors; they could by no means get away from one
another, or evade a mutual observation which was constant and
searching. Whatever standards, therefore, were recognised by the
community, the individual members were constrained to live up to them
in a society where words and deeds lay open to the collective
criticism. And the standard was really a high one. Truth, honour,
courage, generosity, nobility, were qualities common to the whole
body; and those who were not so endowed by birthright could not help
assuming the virtue they did not possess, and, through practice,
making it eventually their own. Black sheep there were, no doubt, but
being never whitewashed, they did not infect the flock, as happens in
more advanced communities.
These intimate conditions favouring the formation of character were
powerfully reinforced by the one feature of European life in China
which was external to the residents, their contact with the
surrounding mass of Chinese. The effect of intercourse with so-called
inferior races is a question of much complexity, and large
generalisations on such subjects are unsafe, each case being best
considered on its proper merits. In their intercourse with the
Chinese, certain points stood out like pillars of adamant to fix the
principles by which the foreign residents were obliged to regulate
their bearing towards the natives. In the first place, the strangers
formed units hemmed in and pressed upon by thousands; therefore they
must magnify themselves by maintaining an invincible prestige, they
must in the eyes of that alien world always be heroes, and they must
present a united front. Extending the same principles from the
material to the moral sphere, the foreigners must maintain the
reputation of their caste for probity, liberality, and trustworthiness.
Their word must be as good as their bond; they must on no account
demean themselves before the heathen, nor tolerate any temptation from
a Chinese source to take unfair advantage of their own kind, the
Caucasian or Christian, or by whatever term we may indicate the white
man. Whatever their private differences, no white man must permit
himself to acquiesce in the disparagement of his own people in the
view of the people of the country. They must be, one and all, above
suspicion. Such were some of the considerations which were effective
in maintaining the character of Europeans in China. Although
association with a race so alien as the Chinese, with such different
moral standards, must have had the usual deteriorating effects of such
contact, yet the positive gain in the formation of character from the
practice of such maxims of conduct as those above indicated probably
left a balance of advantage with the China merchants.
The case would be imperfectly stated were mention not made of the
process of natural selection which constituted the merchants a body of
picked men. China was a remote country. It offered neither the
facility of access nor the scope for adventure which in more recent
times have attracted such streams of emigration to distant parts of
the world. The mercantile body was a close corporation, automatically
protected by barriers very difficult to surmount. The voyage itself
occupied six months. Letters were rarely answered within a year. Hence
all the machinery of business had to be arranged with a large
prescience. Even after the opening of the overland route to Suez
communication with China was maintained by sailing-ships up till 1845,
when the Lady Mary Wood, the first steamer of the P. and O. Company,
reached Hongkong, with no accommodation for more than a few
passengers, and carrying no more cargo than a good-sized lighter. And
later still, when steamers carried the mails fortnightly to China, the
expense of the trip was so great that only a chosen few could afford
it. It took £150 to £170 to land a single man in Hongkong, and in
those days when extensive outfits were thought necessary, probably as
much more had to be laid out in that way. The merchants who
established themselves in China after the opening of the trade were
either themselves men of large means, or they were the confidential
representatives of English and American houses of great position.
There were no local banks, operations extended over one or two years,
an immense outlay of capital was required, and credit had to be
maintained at an exceedingly high level, not only as between the
merchants in China and their correspondents in London, Liverpool, New
York, and Boston, but between both and the financial centre of the
world. Through such a winnowing-machine only good grain could pass. It
was a natural result that the English and American merchants both in
China and India should have been superior as a class to the average of
other commercial communities. And what was true of partners and heads
of houses was no less so of their "assistants." There were no
"clerks," as the term is commonly used in England, except Portuguese
hailing from the neighbouring settlement of Macao. The young men sent
from England were selected with as much care as it was possible to
bestow, for they were precious. Not only were they costly, but it
might take a year to make good casualties. Besides, in countries
situated as China was then, where contingencies of health were never
out of mind, it was not worth while to send out one who was a clerk
and nothing more. There must be potential capacity as well, since it
could never be foreseen how soon emergencies might arise which would
require him to assume the most responsible duties. Hence every new
hand engaged must enjoy the fullest confidence both of his immediate
employers and of the home firm to which they were affiliated.
As might be expected under such circumstances, family connections
played a large part in the selection, and the tendency of the whole
system was to minimise the gulf which in advanced societies separates
the master from the man. In education and culture they were equals, as
a consequence of which the reins of discipline might be held lightly,
all service being willingly and intelligently rendered. The system of
devolution was so fully developed that the assistant was practically
master in his own department, for the success of which he was as
zealous as the head. The "mess" _régime_ under which in most houses
the whole staff, employers and employees, sat at one table, tended
strongly in the direction of a common social level.
What still further contributed much to raise the position of
assistants was the tradition which the merchants both in India and
China inherited from the East India Company of what may be called
pampering their employees. They were permitted to carry on trade on
their own account, in the same commodities and with the same buyers
and sellers, in which they possessed advantages over their employers
in having all the firm's information at command with the privilege of
using its machinery free of cost. The abuses to which such a system
was liable are too obvious to be dwelt upon; but to be himself a
merchant, sometimes more successful than his principal, though without
his responsibilities, certainly did not detract from the social status
of the assistant.
Sixty years ago the China community was composed of men in the prime
of life. The average age was probably not over thirty--a man of forty
was a grey-beard. In this respect an evolutionary change has come over
the scene, and the average age of the adult residents must have risen
by at least ten years. But the China community in all its stages of
development has maintained the colonial characteristic of buoyancy and
hopefulness. Reverses of fortune never appalled its members. Having
been early accustomed to the alternations of fat years and lean, a
disastrous season was to them but the presage of a bountiful one to
follow; while a succession of bad years made the reaction only the
more certain. This wellspring of hope has often helped the China
merchants to carry the freshness of spring even into the snows of
winter. The nature of their pursuits, moreover, fostered a
comprehensive spirit. Trained in the school of wholesale dealing, and
habituated to work on large curves, the China merchants have all
through felt the blood of the merchant princes in their veins, and it
has even been alleged to their disadvantage that, like the scions of
decayed families the world over, the pomp and circumstance were
maintained after the material basis had in the natural course of
affairs vanished. Nay, more, that the grandiose ideas appropriate to
the heirs of a protected system have disqualified them for the contest
in small things which the latter days have brought upon them.
Of that restricted, protected, quasi-aristocratic, half-socialistic
society some of the traditions and spirit remain; but the structure
itself could not possibly withstand the aggression of modern progress,
and it has been swept away. New elements have entered into the
composition of the mercantile and general society of the Far East, its
basis has been widened and its relations with the great world
multiplied. In innumerable ways there has been improvement, not the
least being the development of family life and the more enduring
attachment to the soil which is the result of prolonged residence.
Living, if less luxurious, is vastly more comfortable, more refined,
and more civilised, and men and women without serious sacrifices make
their home in a country which in the earlier days was but a scene of
temporary exile. Charities abound which were not before needed; the
channels of humanity have broadened, though it cannot be said at the
cost of depth, for whatever else may have changed, the generosity of
the foreign communities remains as princely as in the good old days.
Yet is it permissible to regret some of the robuster virtues of the
generation that is past. The European solidarity _vis-à-vis_ the
Chinese world, which continued practically unbroken into the eighth
decade of the century, a tower of moral strength to foreigners and an
object of respect to the Chinese, has now been thrown down. Not only
in private adventures have foreigners in their heat of competition let
themselves down to the level of Chinese tactics, but great financial
syndicates have immersed themselves in intrigues which either did not
tempt the men of the previous generation or tempted them in vain; and
even the Great Powers themselves have descended into the inglorious
arena, where decency is discarded like the superfluous garments of the
gladiator, and where falsity, ultra-Chinese in quality, masquerades in
Christian garb. The moral ascendancy of Christendom has been in a
hundred ways shamelessly prostituted, leaving little visible
distinction between the West and the East but superior energy and
military force.
Take them for all in all, the China merchants have been in their day
and generation no unworthy representatives of their country's
interests and policy, its manhood and character. Their patriotism has
not been toned down but expanded and rationalised by cosmopolitan
associations, and by contact with a type of national life differing
diametrically from their own. Breadth and moderation have resulted
from these conditions, and a habit of tempering the exigencies of the
day by the larger consideration of international problems has been
characteristic of the mercantile bodies in China from first to last.
And though statesmanship lies outside the range of busy men of
commerce, it must be said in justice to the merchants of China that
they have been consistently loyal to an ideal policy, higher in its
aims and more practical in its operation than that which any line of
Western statesmen, save those of Russia, has been able to follow. It
had been better if the continuous prognostications of such a compact
body of opinion had been more heeded.
II. CHINESE.
Business aptitude -- High standard of commercial ethics --
Circumstances hindering great accumulations.
As it requires two to make a bargain, it would be an imperfect account
of the China trade which omitted such an important element as the
efficiency of the native trader. To him is due the fact that the
foreign commerce of his country, when uninterfered with by the
officials of his Government, has been made so easy for the various
parties concerned in it. Of all the accomplishments the Chinese nation
has acquired during the long millenniums of its history, there is none
in which it has attained to such perfect mastery as in the science of
buying and selling. The Chinese possess the Jews' passion for
exchange. All classes, from the peasant to the prince, think in money,
and the instinct of appraisement supplies to them the place of a ready
reckoner, continuously converting objects and opportunities into cash.
Thus surveying mankind and all its achievements with the eye of an
auctioneer, invisible note-book in hand, external impressions
translate themselves automatically into the language of the
market-place, so that it comes as natural to the Chinaman as to the
modern American, or to any other commercial people, to reduce all
forms of appreciation to the common measure of the dollar. A people
imbued with such habits of mind are traders by intuition. If they have
much to learn from foreigners, they have also much to teach them; and
the fact that at no spot within the vast empire of China would one
fail to find ready-made and eager men of business is a happy augury
for the extended intercourse which may be developed in the future,
while at the same time it affords the clearest indication of the true
avenue to sympathetic relations with the Chinese. In every detail of
handling and moving commodities, from the moment they leave the hands
of the producer in his garden-patch to the time when they reach the
ultimate consumer perhaps a thousand miles away, the Chinese trader is
an expert. Times and seasons have been elaborately mapped out, the
clue laid unerringly through labyrinthine currencies, weights, and
measures which to the stranger seem a hopeless tangle, and elaborate
trade customs evolved appropriate to the requirements of a
myriad-sided commerce, until the simplest operation has been invested
with a kind of ritual observance, the effect of the whole being to
cause the complex wheels to run both swiftly and smoothly.
To crown all, there is to be noted, as the highest condition of
successful trade, the evolution of commercial probity, which, though
no monopoly of the Chinese merchants, is one of their distinguishing
characteristics. It is that element which, in the generations before
the treaties, enabled so large a commerce to be carried on with
foreigners without anxiety, without friction, and almost without
precaution. It has also led to the happiest personal relations between
foreigners and the native trader.
When the business of the season was over [says Mr
Hunter][32] contracts were made with the Hong merchants for
the next season. They consisted of teas of certain
qualities and kinds, sometimes at fixed prices, sometimes
at the prices which should be current at the time of the
arrival of the teas. No other record of these contracts was
ever made than by each party booking them, no written
agreements were drawn up, nothing was sealed or attested. A
wilful breach of contract never took place, and as regards
quality and quantity the Hong merchants fulfilled their
part with scrupulous honesty and care.
The Chinese merchant, moreover, has been always noted for what he
himself graphically calls his large-heartedness, which is exemplified
by liberality in all his dealings, tenacity as to all that is material
with comparative disregard of trifles, never letting a transaction
fall through on account of punctilio, yielding to the prejudices of
others wherever it can be done without substantial disadvantage, a
"sweet reasonableness," if the phrase may be borrowed for such a
purpose, which obviates disputation, and the manliness which does not
repine at the consequences of an unfortunate contract. Judicial
procedure being an abomination to respectable Chinese, their security
in commercial dealings is based as much upon reason, good faith, and
non-repudiation as that of the Western nations is upon verbal finesse
in the construction of covenants.
Two systems so diametrically opposed can hardly admit of real
amalgamation without sacrifice of the saving principle of both. And
if, in the period immediately succeeding the retirement of the East
India Company, perfect harmony prevailed between the Chinese and the
foreign merchant, the result was apparently attained by the foreigners
practically falling in with the principles and the commercial ethics
of the Chinese, to which nothing has yet been found superior. The
Chinese aptitude for business, indeed, exerted a peculiar influence
over their foreign colleagues. The efficiency and alacrity of the
native merchants and their staff were such that the foreigners fell
into the way of leaving to them the principal share in managing the
details of the business. When the venerable, but unnatural, Co-hong
system of Old Canton was superseded by the compradoric, the connection
between the foreign firm and their native staff became so intimate
that it was scarcely possible to distinguish between the two, and
misunderstandings have not unfrequently arisen through third parties
mistaking the principal for the agent and the agent for the principal.
Such a relationship could not but foster in some cases a certain
lordly abstraction on the part of the foreign merchant, to which
climatic conditions powerfully contributed. The factotum, in short,
became a minister of luxury, everywhere a demoralising influence, and
thus there was a constant tendency for the Chinese to gain the upper
hand,--to be the master in effect though the servant in name. The
comprador was always consulted, and if the employer ventured to omit
this formality the resulting transaction would almost certainly come
to grief through inexplicable causes. Seldom, however, was his advice
rejected, while many of the largest operations were of his initiation.
Unlimited confidence was the rule on both sides, which often took the
concrete form of considerable indebtedness, now on the one side now on
the other, and was regularly shown in the despatch of large amounts of
specie into the far interior of the country for the purchase of tea
and silk in the districts of their growth. For many years the old
practice was followed of contracting for produce as soon as
marketable, and sometimes even before. During three or four months, in
the case of tea, large funds belonging to foreign merchants were in
the hands of native agents far beyond the reach of the owners, who
could exercise no sort of supervision over the proceedings of their
agents. The funds were in every case safely returned in the form of
produce purchased, which was entered to the foreign merchant at a
price arbitrarily fixed by the comprador to cover all expenses. Under
such a _régime_ it would have needed no great perspicacity, one would
imagine, to foretell in which pocket the profits of trading would
eventually lodge. As a matter of fact, the comprador generally grew
rich at the expense of his employer. All the while the sincerest
friendship existed between them, often descending to the second or
third generation.[33]
It would be natural to suppose that in such an extensive commercial
field as the empire of China, exploited by such competent traders,
large accumulations of wealth would be the result. Yet after making
due allowance for inducements to concealment, the wealth even of the
richest families probably falls far short of that which is not
uncommon in Western countries. Several reasons might be adduced for
the limitation, chiefly the family system, which necessitates constant
redistribution, and which subjects every successful man to the
attentions of a swarm of parasites, who, besides devouring his
substance with riotous living, have the further opportunity of ruining
his enterprises by their malfeasance. Yet although individual wealth
may, from these and other causes, be confined within very moderate
limits, the control of capital for legitimate business is ample. Owing
to the co-operative system under which the financiers of the country
support and guarantee each other, credit stands very high, enabling
the widely ramified commerce of the empire to be carried on upon a
very small nucleus of cash capital. The banking organisation of China
is wonderfully complete, bills of exchange being currently negotiable
between the most distant points of the empire, the circulation of
merchandise maintaining the equilibrium with comparatively little
assistance from the precious metals.
The true characteristics of a people probably stand out in a clearer
light when they are segregated from the conventionalities of their
home and forced to accommodate themselves to unaccustomed conditions.
Following the Chinese to the various commercial colonies which they
have done so much to develop, it will be found that they have carried
with them into their voluntary exile the best elements of their
commercial success in their mother country. The great emporium of
Maimaichên, on the Siberian frontier near Kiachta, is an old
commercial settlement mostly composed of natives of the province of
Shansi, occupying positions of the highest respect both financially
and socially. The streets of the town are regular, wide, and
moderately clean. The houses are solid, tidy, and tasteful, with
pretty little courtyards, ornamental door-screens, and so forth, the
style of the whole being described as superior to what is seen in the
large cities within China proper. The very conditions of exile seem
favourable to a higher scale of living, free alike from the incubus of
thriftless relations and from the malign espionage of Government
officials.
In the Philippine Islands and in Java the Chinese emigrants from the
southern provinces have been the life and soul of the trade and
industry of these places. So also in the British dominions, as at
Singapore and Penang, which are practically Chinese Colonies under the
British flag. Hongkong and the Burmese ports are of course no
exceptions.
The description given by Mr Thomson[34] of the Chinese in Penang would
apply equally to every part of the world in which the Chinese have
been permitted to settle:--
Should you, my reader, ever settle in Penang, you will be
there introduced to a Chinese contractor who will sign a
document to do anything. His costume will tell you that he
is a man of inexpensive yet cleanly habits. He will build
you a house after any design you choose, and within so many
days, subject to a fine should he exceed the stipulated
time. He will furnish you with a minute specification, in
which everything, to the last nail, will be included. He
has a brother who will contract to make every article of
furniture you require, either from drawings or from models.
He has another brother who will fit you and your good lady
with all sorts of clothing, and yet a third relative who
will find servants, and contract to supply you with all the
native and European delicacies in the market upon condition
that his monthly bills are regularly honoured.
It is, indeed, to Chinamen that the foreign resident is
indebted for almost all his comforts, and for the profusion
of luxuries which surround his wonderfully European-looking
home on this distant island.
The Chinese are everywhere found enterprising and trustworthy men of
business. Europeans, worried by the exhaustless refinements of the
Marwarree or Bengali, find business with the Chinese in the Straits
Settlements a positive luxury. Nor have the persecutions of the race
in the United States and in self-governing British colonies wholly
extinguished the spark of honour which the Chinese carry with them
into distant lands. An old "'Forty-niner," since deceased, related to
the writer some striking experiences of his own during a long
commercial career in San Francisco. A Chinese with whom he had
dealings disappeared from the scene, leaving a debt to Mr Forbes of
several thousand dollars. The account became an eyesore in the books,
and the amount was formally "written off" and forgotten. Some years
after, Mr Forbes was surprised by a visit from a weather-beaten
Chinese, who revealed himself as the delinquent Ah Sin and asked for
his account. Demurring to the trouble of exhuming old ledgers, Mr
Forbes asked Ah Sin incredulously if he was going to pay. "Why,
certainly," said the debtor. The account was thereupon rendered to him
with interest, and after a careful examination and making some
corrections, Ah Sin undid his belt and tabled the money to the last
cent, thereupon vanishing into space whence he had come.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] China in 1857-58. Routledge.
[32] The Fankwae at Canton.
[33] Apart from their liberality in the conduct of business, the
generosity of the Chinese mercantile class, their gratitude for past
favours, are so remarkable as to be incomprehensible to the Western
mind. An account of them would read like a "fairy tale."
[34] The Straits of Malacca, &c. By J. Thomson.