Excerpt from Reports From the Foreign Commissioners at the Various Ports in China: For the Year 1865, Presented to Both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty, April 1867 When first appointed in 1861 to officiate conjointly with Mr. Fitz Roy as Inspector-General, only three offices of Customs had been placed under the supervision of Commissioners. Since that time Commissioners have been appointed to all the Treaty Ports, with the exception of Keung-chow and Nanking, and, in connection with the Inspectorate, there are now fourteen establishments, in each of which the transaction of business becomes easier daily. As Commissioners and Clerks, some 90 individuals are now in the service, and as Tide Surveyors and Tide-waiters, about 300. Among these are to be found Englishmen, Frenchmen, Americans, Germans, Danes, Belgians, Spaniards, and Portuguese, and, in the appointments that are made, it is to the character of the man, and his qualifications for the post, rather than to his nationality, that attention is paid. There are also nearly 1,000 Chinese employed in various capacities, as linguists, accountants, copyists, examiners, watchers, and boatmen. Of the foreigners, there are some fifty who are more or less acquainted with Chinese, both written and spoken; and amongst the Chinese, there are more than fifty who have a fair knowledge of English. In 1861 I presented to the Yamen a Memorandum, subsequently embodied in a Memorial to the Throne, in which were given, in round numbers, estimates of the amounts likely to be collected at the several ports, as revenue on foreign trade. In accordance with the instructions thereon issued, Quarterly Reports have since then been regularly forwarded to the Yamen, and the Board of Revenue. I now inclose, for the information of the Yamen, Comparative Tables, so drawn up as to exhibit the amounts that have been collected, and the fluctuations in the revenue, during the five years that have gone by. These Tables comprise the Quarters 1 to 19, i.e., the periods commencing on the 1st October, 1860, and ending the 30th June, 1865. As regards Import duties, it was during the second year (ending 30th June, 1862) that the largest collection took place. Exclusive of duties on opium, the amount collected during that year was about 2,000,000 taels. During the fifth year (ending the 30th June, 1865), the collection was only 880,000 taels. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.