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THE  CHINESE  EMPIRE
from  the  principles  of  Chinese  law  and  their  inequitable
application  :  this  the  British  treaty  of  1842  left  unsettled,
and  it  was  first  introduced  into  the  British  supplementary
treaty  of  Hoomunchai  (1843)  and  the  American  treaty  of
1844.
The  position  was  now  reversed,  and  from  i860,
partly  by  the  action  of  Great  Britain  and  later  of  Great
Britain  and  France,  partly  through  the  weakness  caused
to  China  by  rebellion  and  disorder,  the  foreign  powers  have
been  masters  of  the  situation,  and  foreign  trade  has  been
conducted  on  conditions  laid  down  by  them  and  not  by
China.
The  component  elements  of  the  old  trade  are  not  well
known,  and  will  some  day  be  elucidated  by  a  study  of  the
East  India  Company’s  archives  for  the  period.  All  that  is
known  is  that  China  wanted  very  little  that  the  West  could
supply.  Cotton  manufactures  in  1905  constituted  44  per
cent,  of  the  value  (excluding  opium)  of  all  foreign  imports  ;
but  in  this  industry  the  West  could  compete  with  cheap
Asiatic  labor  only  after  the  development  springing  from  the
inventions  of  Richard  Arkwright  and  Eli  Whitney,  and
in  the  eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  centuries  the  movement ­
  of  cotton  cloth  was  from  China  to  the  West,  in  the
shape  of  nankeens  to  provide  small-clothes  for  our  grandfathers. ­
  Woollens  were  wanted,  but  only  in  small  quantities,
the  Chinese  preferring  their  own  silks,  and  even  now  the
import  of  woollens  does  not  exceed  1  per  cent,  of  the
total  import  trade.  Quicksilver  and  lead  were  wanted,
but  in  no  great  quantities  ;  and  the  goods  introduced  consisted ­
  to  a  great  extent  of  those  articles  which  were  objects
of  curiosity  to  the  Chinese,  corresponding  to  the  lacquered
boxes  and  carved  ivories,  the  painted  fans  and  quaint
Buddhas,  which  went  to  the  West  in  exchange.  Apart
from  opium,  to  be  considered  in  another  chapter,  the  trade
was  on  a  cash  basis.  It  was  before  the  day  of  extended
bank  facilities,  by  which  an  excess  of  exports  from  one
country,¿is  paid  for  by  the  imports  into  another  country,
and  at  Canton  there  were  no  banks,  each  factory  and  each