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THE  CHINESE  EMPIRE

ness  from  one  to  the  other.  When  the  East  India  Company
was  thrust  from  its  high  estate  in  1834  and  the  British
Government  sent  a  Royal  Envoy  to  assume,  for  the  first
time,  the  control  of  trade,  then  the  full  light  of  day  was
thrown  on  the  system,  and  it  was  seen  to  be,  from  its
governmental  side,  a  system  not  of  taxation  but  of  milking.
From  first  to  last  the  foreign  trade  was  milked.  From
the  time  a  ship  entered  port  until  she  left,  she  and  her
equipment  and  her  cargo  and  her  agents  were  solely  in
the  hands  of  men  who  were  under  the  authority  and  direct
control  of  the  Co-Hong  or  the  officials.  Disregarding  the
smaller  fry—the  licensed  and  monopolist  pilots,  ship
chandlers,  stevedores,  lighterers,  brokers,  shroffs,  linguists,
guides—all  of  whom  dipped  their  hands  into  the  pot,  we
need  only  consider  the  relations  between  those  most  friendly
of  rivals,  the  foreign  traders  and  the  Co-Hong  merchants.
The  foreigner  was  surrounded  by  an  impenetrable  veil  ;
he  had  no  access  to  markets,  he  could  not  even  walk  down
a  street  of  shops,  he  could  send  no  independent  and  trustworthy ­
  agent  out  to  inquire  prices,  but  must  in  all  cases
accept  without  criticism  the  prices  offered  by  his  broker
of  the  Co-Hong.  This  applied  equally  to  imports  and  to
exports  ;  and  that  the  Chinese  system  allowed  the  foreigner
not  only  to  make  a  living  but  to  accumulate  a  modest
fortune,  that  a  member  of  the  Co-Hong  would,  when
occasion  called  for  it,  wipe  out  the  debt  of  a  foreign
merchant  who  had  fallen  into  difficulties,  says  much  for
the  generosity  and  the  business  capacity  and  foresight
of  the  Chinese  merchants,  but  it  emphasises  also  the  fact
that  there  must  have  been  a  wide  margin  of  profit  to  allow
of  such  liberality.  For  the  Co-Hong  was  the  milker,
milking  the  foreign  trade  for  all  it  was  worth,  and  paying
heavily  for  the  privilege.  Its  thirteen  members  paid  for
their  appointment,  Tls.200,000  (over  £60,000)  being  reported ­
  as  the  sum  so  paid  by  one  ;  they  were  frequently
ca  led  upon  for  special  contributions,  say  Tls.  100,000,
or  a  Yellow  River  flood  or  some  other  catastrophe  ;  they
had  to  maintain  their  position  (their  “  pull  ”)  at  the  capital  ;