The Sun.
London, England, 1828-12-04 00:00:00

ping for the shopmen. And so judicious has been
the management on the part of the American agents,
that they have for several years been import►ng
British manufactures regularly, from London and Li-
verpool direct, selling them to the country mer-
chants, through the agency of a broker, or
bartering them far silks or Nankeens, with great
trouble and attention, often a single package
at a time, on such terms as to induce a
continuance of the trade, and by avoiding the local
exactions and paying cash duties, enabled to under-
sell the East India Company, who adhere to the old
rule of 1770, selling their imports to the Hong
merchants in the gross, at great sacrifices, and buy-
ing their exports from them, saddled with all the
local restrictions and impositions. This growing
trade, much more advantageous to the British ma-
nufacturer than to the American merchant, has been
watched with a jealous eye by the Company's agents
in China. As the commercial treaty between the
United States and England sanctions the trade, and
there is no possibility of attacking it in England,
where the Company's monopoly is so. odious, their
influence had to be exerted in China to thwart the
trade, and no method so effectual as to compel the ,
American importer of British dry goods to sell to
the Hong merchants, if possible, on the same terms
as they do themselves—terms ruinous to him, be-
cause, having to compete with the cash purchaser of
tea in his own market, he could not compete with
the company vender, who can make up his losses
upon British imports by exactions from the tea
drinkers of England.
" It is well known that on the renewal of their
charter some years since, the Company were com-
pelled to engage to export annually a certain amount
of their-home manufactures. These arrive in China
by ship-loads, and are sold to the Hong merchants
at great loss. These losses are exhibited on every
complaint made against the Company in the British
House of Commons, to prove the advantage the
Company are to the manufacturers, and when ques-
tioned on the cause of the American trade in the
same article being continued and (as consequently
presumed) being productive, they have the boldness
to assert that the Americans smuggle their goods
into China. This accusation comes with an ill grace
from a body of merchants who make in India,
and sell in Calcutta and Bombay, opium, for the
express purpose of being smuggled into China, in
open, direct violation of the prohibitory laws of the
empire, and from the proceeds of which, paid into
their treasury in Canton, to the amount of near
7,000,000 of dollars annually, are they enabled to
conduct their extensive tea trade.

" The Directori; of the East India Company re-
quire that all the transactions of their agents shall
be wholly and exclusively with the Hong merchants.
Their agents are paid liberally by the Company, and
arc expressly prohibited from trading on their own
account. Entering as writers through patronage
at home, they gradually ascend to be members of
the select committee, without any regard to the
ability of the individual; hence, at times, the Com-
mittee may consist of men wholly unfit for the im-
portant station they fill, and the most fatal effects
may result from one mis-step ; for the weight of
authority which the Select Committee possess, hav-
inff the right in themselves to increase or diwinish
the proportion of trade given to each Hong mer-
chant, gives them an undue influence over the trade
of other nations.

" The English company's tea-trade is divided out
in shares, and to such of the Hong merchants as the
committee sees proper, they give one, two, or three
shares. Such is the extraordinary manlier in which
they conduct the trade, that each share is considered
equal to an annual profit to the holder of 40,000
dollars, besides the extra mercantile standing given
him in the opinion of his countrymen, by holding a
certain number of these shares ; and, what is the
most extraordinary feature in this extraordinary mono-
poly of the cohong, the Hong merchants, one after
another, are becoming bankrupt, and it is for the
purpose of bolstering up this rotten monopoly that
the select committee hare pledged themselves, the
present season, to assist and support them in their
sinister views on the American trade.
" The committee enters into contracts with the
Hong merchants for their teas in March, which are
to be delivered in November or December following ;
and the Hong merchant, on his part, contracts with
the country merchants, advancing them money on
account. The tea merchants have always claimed
and exorcised the right of disposing of their teas on
their arrival at Canton, to any other person than
the Hong merchant, returning him the amount ad-
vanced with interest. On this point there has al-
ways been difficulty ; but it is one belonging exclu-
sively to the Chinese, in which foreigners have no
right to interfere—and it is here that the American
trade comes in direct collision with the English.
Acting on the principle of fair competition, the
Americans contend for the right of purchasing the
best the market affords, and pay in proportion to the
demand. The English rule is the reverse of this,
and long established prices are paid for the several
grades of teas, and the decision of their tea inspec-
tor regulates the grade to which each chop or parcel
belongs. From this decision there is no appeal, and
the merchant who sends his sample to the inspector
must abide by his dictation : although the American
merchant would give him an advanced price for it,
he is compelled to give it to the company. As the
tea-melt have so often
.suffered by these exactions,
many of the most respectable of them have either
become. bankrupt, or withdrawn, in disgust, from a
trade in which they are exposed to such impositions,
coupled with the defalcations of a negligent cohong,
and those who continue to turn their attention first
to the Americans, and if not satisfied with their
prices, they send them to the Company, and for se-
veral years the Company's supply of superior teas
had been much reduced.* Some mode was, there-
fore, to be found to check the growing evil. It was
short-sighted policy that dictated the one of which
we hare to complain ; for while it might secure to
the Company a choice from the Hon of the tens
that did come, it must incessantly make the supply
shorter when the already crippled tea-men should be
compelled to recognize the failing Hong merchants
as their own brokers ; and in nothing, perhaps, have
the Company's agents evinced their ignorance more
than in this—in imagining that the American de-
mand alone was absorbing all the good teas, when it.
is the bad cultivation of the article by impoverished
and defrauded tea-men, which has reduced the bulk
of the American qualities in a ratio fully equal to
that of the Company's.
:l Ther
reduced
cohong
to
consisted of 14, members,
now
bally ybankrupttes; and of these
seven, four only are men of capital or credit. On
,uccng seven origi n
the failure of Manhop, in February, IS2B, the Hong
merchants entered into a compact with the English
company, by which they subjected themselves to
a penalty of 20,000 dollars, to be levied on the
Hong merchant who shall, after a certain date, grant
his chop or permission for the sale of any imports,
to any persons other than the Hong merchant, or
shall ship off any goods purchased of a shopman, and
to the forfeiture by such a one of all his shares of the
Company's business, at the pleasure of the com-
mittee. The attainment of several objects might
be reached by this measure. The cohong, deeply
-embarrassed by the previous failures of Conseequa,
Paequa, and Poonqua, and the more recent and se-

" W These remarks are wholly to be understood as refer-
ring to green teas. The black teas are of but little impor-
tance to the Americans, and, as it respects them, the Com-
pany have their own way."