Chinese Maritime Customs Service
Ministry of Finance |
Imperial Maritime Customs Service | |
---|---|
Hanyu Pinyin | Dà Qīng huángjiā hǎiguān zǒngshuìwùsī |
The Chinese Maritime Customs Service was a Chinese governmental tax collection agency and information service from its founding in 1854 until it split in 1949 into services operating in the
History
From 1757 to the signing of the Treaty of Nanking by the Chinese and British governments in 1842, all foreign trade in China operated through the Canton System, a monopoly centered in the Southern Chinese port of Canton (now Guangzhou). The treaty abolished the monopoly and opened the ports of Shanghai, Amoy (Xiamen), Ningpo (Ningbo) and Foochow (Fuzhou) to international trade, creating the need for a mechanism to collect customs duties in these additional ports.[2][3]
The
Organization
While controlled by the Chinese central government, the Service was largely staffed at senior levels by foreigners throughout its history. It was effectively established by foreign consuls in Shanghai in 1854 to collect maritime trade taxes that were going unpaid due to the inability of Chinese officials to collect them during the
After two decades of operation, the system collected about one third of the revenue available to the government in Beijing. In addition, foreign trade expanded rapidly because international trade was regulated and predictable. Foreign governments benefitted because there was a mechanism to collect revenues to repay the loans that they had imposed on or granted to China. By 1900, there were 20,000 people working in forty main Customs Houses across China and many more subsidiary stations.[6]
Inspectors-General and notable officers
The agency's first Inspector-General (IG),
Amongst the many well-known figures who worked for the Customs in China were
A number of early
Inspectors-General, full and officiating
# | Incumbent | Start of Term | End of Term |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Horatio Nelson Lay | 12 July 1854 | 15 November 1863 |
2 | Sir Robert Hart | 15 November 1863 | 20 September 1911 |
– | Sir Robert Bredon | 20 April 1908 | 17 June 1910 |
– | Sir Francis Aglen | 17 June 1910 | 25 October 1911 |
3 | 25 October 1911 | 31 January 1927 | |
– | A. H. F. Edwardes | 31 January 1927 | 31 December 1928 |
4 | Sir Frederick Maze | 8 January 1929 | 31 May 1943 |
– | C. H. B. Joly | 8 December 1941 | 1 March 1943 |
– | Kishimoto Hirokichi | 8 December 1941 | 15 August 1945 |
5 | Lester Knox Little | 1 June 1943 | January 1950 |
Life in the customs service
Even higher level 'indoor staff' sometimes had difficulties in the nineteenth century, as the value of their salaries varied with the price of silver, and the extra year's pay every seven years which Hart had negotiated for them in place of a pension did not always allow for having an adequate saving for retirement. Family travel costs were at their expense, so not everyone took their due of foreign leave of two years on half pay after the first seven years, and subsequently every ten years. They were subject to all the usual hazards of life in China from illness and civil disruption to difficulties in providing for the education of their children, which often involved family separation, although to some extent this was compensated by the strong esprit de corps. A network of friends was sustained across changes of post by letter-writing, quite frequently by the duty of their wives.
Sir Robert Hart was sometimes a sympathetic boss, but he insisted on high standards of efficiency and honesty, and, for those aspiring to the highest rank of Commissioner, a thorough knowledge of written and spoken Chinese. His most likely young men spent a year or more in Beijing learning Chinese under his supervision, which also allowed him to evaluate other characteristics that would enable them to act sensibly and rapidly in crisis situations demanding immediate response without referral back to him. The compensations included a short working day, which meant the later afternoon could be spent exercising and socializing, going to the races, playing tennis, taking part in amateur dramatics or musical performances, and later enjoy dinner parties, which might include 'absurd games', or a musical interlude.[9]
Ensigns of the Customs Service
-
State and naval ensign of the Qing Empire, 1867–1911
-
Customs ensign of the Qing Empire, 1867–1911
-
Ensign of Chinese Customs (Beiyang Government), 1911–1928
-
Ensign of Chinese Customs (Nanking Government), 1929–1931
-
Ensign of Chinese Customs (Nanking Government), 1931–1950 (In use by vessels until 1976)
-
Flag of the Inspector-General, 1929–1950 and is later used by the ROC Minister of Finance (Minister responsible for customs)
Archives
Records of individual senior and junior staff in the Chinese Maritime Customs are preserved in the
See also
- General Administration of Customs
- Chinese postal romanization
- Anglo-Chinese relations
- History of foreign relations of China
- Category:Ships of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service
Notes
- ^ Hart retired in September 1907 but retained his title as Inspector-General until his death in 1911. Sir Robert Bredon was Officiating Inspector-General from September 1907 until his resignation in 1910. Aglen then acted until being appointed official IG in October 1911.
- ^ Maze was interned when the Japanese took control of the Shanghai International Settlement in December 1941. As a consequence, until his release in 1943, Maze's functions were split between operations within areas controlled by the Chinese government (C.H.B. Joly, OIG 1941–1943) and, until 1945, areas controlled by the Japanese and their puppet government of Wang Jingwei (Kishimoto Hirokichi, OIG 1941–1945).
References
Citations
- ^ Chinese Maritime Customs Project, University of Bristol
- ^ Robert Bickers, "Revisiting the Chinese maritime customs service, 1854–1950." Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 36.2 (2008): 221–226.
- ^ Henk Vynckier and Chihyun Chang, "'Imperium In Imperio': Robert Hart, the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, and its (Self-) Representations," Biography 37#1 (2014), pp. 69–92 online
- ISBN 978-1-4985-3705-6.
Russia was eager to extend its influence in Manchuria... However, these ambitions were complicated, and occasionally thwarted, by Great Game rivalries between Britain and Russia in Asia. [...] Thus, when in 1880 the Russian minister in China began to press Customs I.G. Robert Hart to employ more Russians, Hart was obviously alarmed.
- ^ Dr. Chihyun Chang, “Modern China’s Customs Services: A Brief Introduction,” Archived 2013-05-09 at the Wayback Machine (Academic Sinica)
- ^ “The Chinese Maritime Customs Service: Forgotten History Archived 2018-08-14 at the Wayback Machine,” Stina Björkell, quoting Prof Han Van der Ven, University of Cambridge, GBtimes January 25, 2008.
- ^ Chang, Modern China's Customs Services.
- ^ Chinese Maritime Customs Project, University of Bristol
- ^ Mary Tiffen, Friends of Sir Robert Hart: Three Generations of Carrall Women in China, Tiffania Books, 2012 www.tiffaniabooks.com
Sources
- Bickers, Robert. "Revisiting the Chinese maritime customs service, 1854–1950." Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 36.2 (2008): 221–226.
- Brunero, Donna (2006). Britain's Imperial Cornerstone in China: The Chinese Maritime Customs Service, 1854–1949. Routledge. Google Books [1]
- Chihyun Chang. (2013) Government, Imperialism and Nationalism in China: The Maritime Customs Service and Its Chinese Staff. New York: Routledge, Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia. ISBN 9780203075845(ebook).
- Crawford, David S. (2006). "James Watson, MD, LRCSE – an Edinburgh trained physician and surgeon in northeastern China 1865–1884" (PDF). J. Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
- Drew, Edward B. "Sir Robert Hart and His Life Work in China." The Journal of Race Development (1913): 1–33 online.
- Eberhard-Bréard, Andrea. "Robert Hart and China's statistical revolution." Modern Asian Studies 40.3 (2006): 605–629. online
- Fairbank, John King (1953). Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842–1854. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Horowitz, Richard S. "Politics, power and the Chinese maritime customs: The Qing restoration and the ascent of Robert Hart." Modern Asian Studies 40.3 (2006): 549–581 online[dead link].
- Tiffen, Mary (2012). Friends of Sir Robert Hart: Three Generations of Carrall Women in China. Tiffania Books.
- van de Ven, Hans (2014). Breaking with the Past: The Maritime Customs Service and the Global Origins of Modernity in China. Columbia University Press. Google Books [2]
- Vynckier, Henk, and Chihyun Chang, "'Imperium In Imperio': Robert Hart, the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, and its (Self-)Representations," Biography 37#1 (2014), pp. 69–92. online
- Wright, Stanley Fowler (1950). Hart and the Chinese Customs. Belfast: William Mullen and Son for Queen's University.
External links
- "Records of the Maritime Customs Service of China, 1854–1949" from GALE
- Bristol University Chinese Maritime Customs Project
- Bristol University China Families platform Searchable database including all CMCS staff, 1854–1949
- Handlist of L.K. Little papers at Houghton Library, Harvard University
- Maria Bugrova Bumali Project about Chinese Maritime Customs
- Modern China and the Imperial Maritime Customs Archived 2013-08-03 at the Wayback Machine project page Center for Geographic Information Science, Research Center for Humanities and Social Science, Academia Sinica