Open Research Online The Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs British ships and West China, 1875-1941: With special reference to the Upper Yangtze. Thesis How to cite: Blue, Archibald Duncan (1978). British ships and West China, 1875-1941: With special reference to the Upper Yangtze. The Open University. For guidance on citations see FAQs. c 1977 The Author https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Version: Version of Record Link(s) to article on publisher’s website: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21954/ou.ro.0000f7cc Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. oro.open.ac.uk BRITISH SHIPS AND WEST CHINA, l8?3 ~ 19^1 With special reference to the Upper Yangtze A DISSERTATION Submitted for the Degree of Bachelor of Philosophy to the Open University by Archibald Duncan Blue March 1978 (J ProQ uest Number: 27919402 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent on the quality of the copy submitted. in the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 27919402 Published by ProQuest LLC (2020). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. Ail Rights Reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 - 1346 ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION British Ships and West China, I876 - 1941 This dissertation describes the activities of British ships in west China, especially on the Upper Yangtze, in the first forty years of this century. The beginning of this period coincided with the high water mark of imperialism, and its close with the decline of imperialism in most parts of the world. This was probably more clearly illustrated in west China than in any other part of the world, and this was one main area of Anglo-French colonial rivalry. It is difficult today to realise that as late as 1940, Britain was still pursuing an expansionist policy here, and inducing a China, hard pressed by Japanese aggression, to cede tracts of territory on her far western border to Burma. The contribution of British shipping to the country's prestige and prosperity is insufficiently appreciated. On the Upper Yangtze and on the West River, British ships were trading in comparatively unknown parts of .the world, yet in parts with a much longer history than western Europe. The war brought west China into international prominence, and hastened its economic development. British people can look back with some pride on the part their merchants and sailors played in the early stages of this development. It was an historic anachronism, that British ships were trading 1,400 miles from the sea in a foreign country as late as 1940, as long before then the rights of cabotage had been abolished in almost every other part of the world. I have attempted to describe the operations of these British ships against the international political situation in the Far East. To some extent this was reflected in rivalry in shipping on the Yangtze, and coincided with the rise of Japan as a world power, and the growth of nationalism and communism in China. Contents Page Preface 4 List of Maps ; 8 Abbreviat ions for 9 Footnotes Introduction Description of conditions under which British ' 10 trade and shipping developed in China; the importance of the Yangtze Chapter 1 Early approaches to west China from Burma and • 40 India by the East India Company, the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company, and Anglo-French rivalry Chapter 2 Opening of the Lower Yangtze to foreign shipping ^5 and establishment of first treaty ports there. Royal Naval and other expeditions to and beyond Hankow, I86O-I876 Chapter 3 The Chefoo Agreement and opening of Middle 87 Yangtze to foreign shipping. Early steamer services on Middle River, chartered junks and ambiguous position of Chungking, I8 76-I893 Chapter 4 Diplomatic background to situation on the Yangtze 112 and Britain's 'special' position there. International rivalry, railway loans. Boxer Rebellion and Russo-Japanese War, 1896-1914 Chapter 5 Upper Yangtze opened to foreign ships and 127 Chungking made a treaty port. Leechuan and Pioneer reach Chungking, Captain Plant and Szechwan Steam Navigation Company, naval expeditions on the UE^per Yangtze, I8 96-I917 2 Page Chapter 6 British approach to west China from Pakhoi 156 and the West River, treaty ports on West River, A.R. Colquhoun and the 'Yunnan Myth', 1896- 1917. Chapter 7 First regular steamer services above Ichang, 177 peak years of foreign ships on the Upper Yangtze coincide with civil wars and rebellions. Anti- foreign boycotts and Japanese menace, 1917-19^1 Chapter 8 Social life on the Upper Yangtze, brief remarks 206 on development of Chungking Chapter 9 Siho-Japanese War, increasing restriction on 221 British ships on the Yangtze and final closing of the river. The last days on the Yangtze and the abolition of the treaty port system, 1937-1941 Glossary 235 Maps Foreign Encroachment in China 2 4 0 . The Yangtze from Suifu to the Sea Routes between China and India Sketch Map of West River Basin Chronological Table Principally of events concerned with shipping 244 on the Yangtze Appendix 1 Short List of Principal Treaties and Agreements 25d concerning the Treaty Port System 1842-1943 Appendix 2 Brief Description of main features of the treaty 254 port system Appendix 3 List of ports on the Yangtze open to foreign 256 trade with some brief particulars Page Appendix 4 List of some early steamships which operated 257 on Upper Yangtze with technical details where known Bibliography 26l PREFACE I became interested in the Upper Yangtze and west China soon after I arrived on the China coast in I9 2 8 . I first sailed on the southern section of the coast, however, between Amoy, Swatow, Hong Kong and Singapore, and not until two years later did I first see Shanghai and the Yangtze. Then in I93 I I was appointed to the China Navigation Company's Kiating at Shanghai, then preparing to go to the Upper Yangtze for the season, after her annual overhaul. Un­ fortunately, the sudden illness of an engineer on another ship resulted in my hurried transfer to that ship, and my best chance of sailing on the Upper Yangtze and through the Yangtze Gorges eluded me. I have always regretted not having sailed above Ichang, apart from a launch trip from Ichang to see the Ichang Gorge, the first of the gorges, and so I have never seen Szechwan or west China. This may well have increased my interest in this almost legendary region, and my study and discussion of it with more fortunate colleagues has intensified this interest. An additional stimulus was the discovery during my research that the Pioneer, the first commercial steamship on the Upper Yangtze, was built at Blackwood and Gordon's shipyard at Port Glasgow, where I served the first three years of my engineering apprent iceship. The activities of the China Navigation Company figure very largely in this dissertation. This is not only because of my personal association with this company over many years; but also because information about its operations on the Upper Yangtze during the important inter war years has been more accessible than that of its old rival, the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company. The difficulties which British ships had experienced and overcome on the coast .and on the Lower Yangtze during the first three quarters of the nineteenth century, attained a new dimension when they reached the Upper Yangtze. The Chinese were reluctant to permit further penetration of their country by Europeans, whether missionaries or merchants, and agreements grudgingly wrung from them by the Western Powers were hedged about with so many ambiguities and restrictions, as to be of limited practical value. - To further complicate matters, attempts to extend Western trade into the Upper Yangtze and west China came at a time when central government authority - never strong at the best of times - was breaking down. Even had the central government been anxious to honour its international commitments, it lacked the power to make provincial authorities comply. In his Trade in the Eastern Seas, Professor Parkinson argues that maritime history has never yet taken its rightful place as a subject for investigation. "We have on the one hand, the economic historian who tells us much about imports and exports, but very little about shipping. We have, on the other hand, the student of nautical archaeology, who tells us much about ships, but very little about trade. Somewhere between these two types of scholarship lies the true history of the sea. Maritime history I have called it." This study is an attempt to fill this gap in a little known section of British shipping history. The material for this study has been obtained from many sources; but the main source until I916 has been the Reports of the British Consuls at the Treaty Ports of China. These cover many aspects of 1 C. Northcote Parkinson, Trade in the Eastern Seas 1793 I8 I3 (1937) p. XL the British presence on the Yangtze - political and social, as well as commercial. The primary source for most statistics relating to shipping, however, is the Reports of the Chinese Maritime Customs at the Treaty Ports, compiled by the Commissioners of Customs at these ports.