Regulations negotiated and Signed at Shanghai, November 8th 1858, are not yet in force. All Decrees and Regulations issued from this Legation under the treaty of Wanghia still remain of full effect. [Enclosure] PROCLAMATION. Whereas a Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the United States of America and the Ta-Tsing Empire was negociated between the Plenipotentiaries of those nations, and signed by them in the English and Chinese languages on the 18th day of June, 1858, at Tientsin; which Treaty has been ratified by the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate thereof, and by the Emperor of China; and the said Ratifications have been duly exchanged: THEREFORE, be it known, that this Treaty is now published for the general information and guidance of all whom it may concern; and I hereby call upon all citizens of the United States, residing in, or visiting this Empire, to obey its stipulations, and thereby promote the amicable relations now existing between the two Nations. At all the Ports open to commerce, tonnage duties will be paid on merchant vessels belonging to the United States, according to the provisions of this Treaty, on and after the 24th day of November, 1859. The Ports of Chau-chau, or Swatow, in the Province of Kwangtung, and Taiwan on Formosa in the Province of Fuhkien, will be opened to American commerce, and for Americans to reside with their families, on and after the first day of January, 1860. Given under my Hand and Seal of Office at the Legation of the United [L.S.] States in SHANGHAI, this eighth day of November, A.D. eighteen hundred and fifty-nine, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-fourth. JOHN E. WARD, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States. Attest, Secretary of Legation. This paragraph on the subject of postponement is from Ward's despatch (No. 22) reporting the understanding: You will see that I have agreed to suspend the new commercial regulations and tariff negotiated last November until after the English and French difficulties have been settled, when they will all go into effect together. My reasons for adopting this course have been fully explained in former communications, and I hope are approved. I may add, that, so far as I have been able to learn, every American merchant is gratified that the operation of those regulations is for the present suspended In his despatch of March 26, 1860, from Macao, Ward thus reviewed the treaty situation (D.S., 19 Despatches, China, No. 6, excerpts): 1 As the necessary parts of one entire whole they are threefold-First-the General Treaty of Amity and Commerce of the 18th of June. Second-the Convention finally adjusting the indemnities due to our Citizens. Third-the Convention embodying a Revised Tariff and new Regulations of Trade and Transit. The First-The Treaty having been exchanged is in full force and has 1 Document 198. 2 Document 204. been published by me in China. Whilst I did not feel authorized to make known the treaty without the assent of the Chinese Government and thus assume the responsibility of embarrassing my own Government by failure on the part of the Chinese to carry its stipulations into effect, yet, as the Treaty provided for its publication in China immediately after the Exchange of the Ratifications, I believed it to be my duty to insist upon this and to have it proclaimed so soon as it could be done with the assent of the Chinese Government that our citizens might, as soon as possible, enjoy its advantages. If the English and French Treaties had been exchanged as was anticipated when my Instructions were received, they would at once have been proclaimed in China with the American Treaty. These two Governments having failed in obtaining the Ratifications & Consequent publication of their Treaties, it deed [did] not seem to me that I was relieved from the obligation of having the stipulations of the American Treaty carried into effect as soon as possible and this could not be done without its publication in China. I can now only hope for the approval of the President and that by an early publication of the Treaty with the Conventions in the United States, I may be relieved from the anxiety which is now naturally felt by me. Second-The Convention finally adjusting the indemnities due our Citizens not having been exchanged & no necessity existing for its immediate publication in China, has not been published by me. It is, however, as I have reported in former Despatches, now being faithfully carried out and after the payment of all the American claims, there will be a surplus of more than Two hundred thousand dollars at the disposal of the Government. Third-The Commercial Convention embracing the revised Tariff & new Regulations of Trade & Transit. Although this Convention is regarded by the Chinese, like that for settling our claims, as a part of the Treaty and no exchange necessary, and although I am anxious that it should be published with that Convention as a part of the Treaty, I do not think it desirable for ourselves or just to the Chinese that its provisions should be enforced until after the English and French difficulties shall have been arranged. That Convention is composed of two parts-the Revised Tariff & the Regulations of Trade and Transit. In regard to the Revised Tariff we certainly will gain nothing by exchanging for it the Tariff of 1844. I have thought that to force upon the Chinese this Tariff thus formed during the existence of their difficulties with England and France thus creating "a source of embarassment and misunderstanding" would be as unwise and unjust in me as it was wise and proper in Mr Reed to accede to its provisions and thus prevent "great Confusion and much injustice to China". When the new Regulations of transit can be faithfully carried out, the wisdom of Mr Reed in assenting to the Tariff independent of any considerations for the Chinese will be made manifest but to carry these Regulations into effect the Foreign Custom House System must be established at all the open Ports, and the right of foreigners to go with their goods into the interior of China under the Passport System must be accorded. In relation to the first, the New Custom-House System, has been inaugurated at three of the open Ports-Shanghae-Swatau and Canton. I learn that it is the intention of Mr [Horatio Nelson] Lay (who has been employed by the Chinese Government to carry out this system) to establish the same at all the other Ports as soon as practicable. In a former Despatch I have fully explained the part which I have felt it to be my duty to take in the inauguration of this system. I have recommended no individual American Citizen for any appointment nor have I used my influence to secure the appointment of any one, but I have demanded that American interests should be recognized by the Appointment of a proper portion of American Citizens and this was necessary to prevent in the language of Mr Reed "an English and French Commercial Protectorate on this Coast". I have, however, said to American Citizens accepting this appointment that they must do so with the full understanding that they became Chinese officials responsible alone to the Chinese Government and deprived of all claim upon their own for protection during the tenure of their office. Wherever this new System has been established the transit Regulations have been carried out as far as the influence of the Custom-house could extend, but this is necessarily very limited and, as I have before said, foreigners must be able to follow their goods into the Country and to go into the Country for the purpose of purchasing produce before the benefits of this System can be realised to any extent. No such right being given by our Treaty but as stated by Mr Reed in his Communication to the Imperial Commissioners dated Shanghae November 10-1858 "The right of citizens of the United States to go into the interior of "China is derivative-is conferred by that clause of the Treaty of Tientsin of the "18th of June which gives to the United States and its Citizens all the privileges "of the most favored nation" We must wait for the enjoyment of this right until the English Treaty from which it is derived shall have been exchanged and put in force. Whilst therefore I am anxiously expecting by the arrival of every Mail to learn that the Treaty with both Conventions has been officially published by the President it will be impossible to enforce that embodying the Revised Tariff and New Regulations of Trade and transit until the settlement of the difficulties between China and England and France. The new tariff and trade regulations became definitively effective upon the final adjustment between China on the one hand and Great Britain and France on the other; this was brought about, after hostilities, by the conventions signed at Peking on October 24 and 25, 1860, concurrently wherewith ratifications of the British and French Treaties of Tientsin were exchanged (for the convention of Peking with Great Britain of October 24, and the convention with France of October 25, see 50 British and Foreign State Papers, 10-12; 51 ibid., 668-71). The British and French Treaties of Tientsin, to which the British and French tariff and trade conventions of November 8 and November 24, 1858, were respectively supplemental, were, with the British and French conventions of 1860, published in the Peking Gazette pursuant to the imperial decree of October 28, 1860 (see the despatch of Elgin of November 13, 1860, and enclosures, printed in Parliamentary Papers, 1861, vol. 66, No. 2754, "Correspondence Respecting Affairs in China, 1859-60", pp. 253-58). With the burning of the Summer Palace of Yuenmingyuen, near Peking, by British forces on October 18, 1860, were destroyed the original documents of the American and Russian Treaties of Tientsin, of this convention of November 8, 1858, and accompanying papers and records in the archives of the Government of China (see D.S., 19 Despatches, China, No. 4, February 6, 1861, from Commodore Cornelius K. Stribling, and enclosures; Commodore Stribling at the time was flag officer commanding the United States Naval Forces in the East Indies and China Seas and Chargé d'Affaires ad interim; relevant correspondence is printed in the editorial notes to Document 198, vol. 7, pp. 925-26). DURATION OF THE CONVENTION This convention was in large part superseded by the treaty of October 8, 1903 (33 Statutes at Large, 2208-33); that treaty included an import tariff and rules; the system known as likin was abolished (article 4); and provision was made in the same article that the Chinese Government might "recast the foreign export tariff" within certain limits. The treaty of October 20, 1920 (42 ibid., 1955-70), also included an import tariff and rules. Article 1 of the treaty of July 25, 1928 (45 ibid., 2742-43), contained this paragraph (effective June 20, 1929): All provisions which appear in treaties hitherto concluded and in force between the United States of America and China relating to rates of duty on imports and exports of merchandise, drawbacks, transit dues and tonnage dues in China shall be annulled and become inoperative, and the principle of complete national tariff autonomy shall apply subject, however, to the condition that each of the High Contracting Parties shall enjoy in the territories of the other with respect to the above specified and any related matters treatment in no way discriminatory as compared with the treatment accorded to any other country. Article 29 of the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation between the United States and China signed at Nanking November 4, 1946, reads in part as follows (Congressional Record, vol. 93, pp. 2356-62, March 20, 1947): 1. This Treaty shall, upon its entry into force, supersede provisions of the following treaties between the United States of America and the Republic of China in so far as such provisions have not previously been terminated: (a) Treaty of Peace, Amity and Commerce, signed at Wang Hea, July 3, 1844; (b) Treaty of Peace, Amity and Commerce, signed at Tientsin, June 18, 1858; (c) Treaty Establishing Trade Regulations and Tariff, signed at Shanghai, November 8, 1858; (d) Treaty of Trade, Consuls and Emigration, signed at Washington, July 28, 1868; (e) Immigration Treaty, signed at Peking, November 17, 1880; (f) Treaty as to Commercial Intercourse and Judicial Procedure, signed at Peking, November 17, 1880; (g) Treaty as to Commercial Relations, signed at Shanghai, October 8, 1903; (h) Treaty Establishing Rates of Duty on Imports Into China, signed at Washington, October 20, 1920; and (i) Treaty Regulating Tariff Relations, signed at Peiping, July 25, 1928. 707223-48- -9 |