Chapter IV

EXTERNAL TRADE IN AND COTTON GOODS

Exports of Cloth and Although China's exportation of cotton cloth has a long history, its statistical records can be traced only from 1734 when the East India Company made a trial purchase of 100 bolts of Chinese hand-woven cloth.! From then on Chinese native cloth became an important item on the China trade list of that cornpany.2 The type of exportable cloth, which was about 13.5 inches wide and 6 yards long, and weighed 3.7 pounds per piece, was produced in the general area of Nanking. Hence it was called "nankeen" by foreign merchants. In the eighteenth century nankeen not only was better in quality than the local products of Kwangtung but was also superior to cloth manufactured by the newly established mills in Lancashire. Table 13 shows that exports of nankeen continued to rise until 1800 and then became stabilized for about thirty years. Although there are no records of the destination of those cloth exports the nationalities of ships that carried the cargoes may be indicative of the consuming countries. Aside from the East India Company, shipments were carried by merchant vessels from America, Holland, France, Denmark, Sweden, and Spain. After the turn of the eight­ eenth century, however, the majority of those were transported by American vessels, mostly to the United States.4 The supremacy of the Lancashire mills was finally established by the l830s. The early part of the nineteenth century also saw a rapid development of cotton mills in America. 5 Consequently, the overseas sales of Chinese hand-woven cloth were drastically cur­ tailed. In the meantime the influx of foreign piece goods began to increase, resulting in a deficit for the first time in 1830 in China's external trade of cotton . 6 By 1833, the overseas market for nankeen had almost completely disappeared. Although the trade data compiled by Morse were discontinued in 1834 and 81 82

Table 1

Exports of Hand-woven Cotton Cloth, 1786-1936 (Annual Average)

Quantity Value (piculs) (1,000 haikwan taels)

1786-1790 12,250 289 1791-1795 16,861 398 1796-1800 26,055 615 1801-1805 38,750 914 1806-1810 24,333 574 1811-1815 9,305 220 1816-1820 35,000 731 1821-1825 38,583 902 1826-1830 29,694 677 1831-1833 5,888 114 1834-1866 no data no data 1867-1870 1,259 48 1871-1875 781 36 1876-1880 1,866 96 1881-188'5 2,583 105 1886-1890 5,617 206 1891-1895 17,706 657 1896-1900 27,838 1,170 1901-1905 25,986 1,224 1906-1910 35,669 1,709 1911-1915 44,380 2,291 1916-1920 51,719 3,139 1921-1925 63,104 3,947 1926-1930 40,297 2,698 1931-1936 32,986 2,207

Note: The quantities for 1786-1833 are originally given in terms of bolts. According to the data quoted in H. D. Fong, Chung-kuo chih mien-fang­ chih-yeh (Shanghai, 1934), p. 322, we know that for the types of nankeen exported in this period one picul contained on the average 36 bolts. We use this ratio to convert all original quantities into piculs, each of which is equiva­ lent to 133.3 pounds. As for values, the figures for the years before 1875 are originally stated in ordinary silver taels but the haikwang tael has been used thereafter. The ratio between the two units is 111.4 = 100. We use this ratio to convert the value figures prior to 1875 into HKT.