Treaty Ports in Chin

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: who were, after the fashion of the time, themselves merchants, and who not being credited by the Chinese Government, came and went, hoisted or lowered their flags, without the slightest notice from the authorities,11 but to the Company, which was always ready to be the champion not only of British...
More Description

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: who were, after the fashion of the time, themselves merchants, and who not being credited by the Chinese Government, came and went, hoisted or lowered their flags, without the slightest notice from the authorities,11 but to the Company, which was always ready to be the champion not only of British interests but also of all foreign interests.12 4. Jurisdiction over Aliens. On account of the increase of the foreign population in China during the first half of the 19th century, the problem of legal control over aliens became greater every year. At Canton the number increased from 165 in 1832 to 307 in 1836.13 In 1830 the number at Macao was 3,351 white persons and 1,129 slaves.14 The nationalities represented in the above figures were British, Indians, Parsees Americans, Portuguese, Germans, Dutch, Swedes, Danes, French, Spaniards and Italians.15 These aliens lived together in a community of their own but they had ho common organization for their own administration. The consuls appointed by the various governments were merely merchants, neither accredited to the Chinese Government nor recognized by it as official agents of their nations. Consequently, the legal control of aliens was left to the Chinese authorities. The Chinese notion of territorial sovereignty and jurisdiction, as entertained, though at times vaguely, by the local authorities in those days, was not essentially different from that which the modern international jurists maintain. It was claimed that within the territory the Chinese laws were supreme, and that foreigners were subject to the same obligation and penalties as the natives.16 During this period regulations were made and adopted from time to time for observance by the traders and other aliens. For instance, they were required to return from Canto...