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WIT.LIA 
 
 UN1VLRS! 
 SANTA B 
 
 LIBRARY 
 i [JfORNlA 
 
 A. COLLEGE 
 
 U3U 7 m »>* 
 
THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE TRADE AND ADMINISTRATION 
 OF THE CHINESE EMPIRE 
 
 With 2 Maps and 16 Illustrations 
 8vo, 7s. 6d. net. 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 
 
 LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 
 
THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 WITH AN ACCOUNT OF 
 
 THE GILD MERCHANT 
 
 OR CO-HONG OF CANTON 
 
 BY 
 
 HOSEA BALLOU MORSE 
 
 SOMETIME STATISTICAL SECRETARY, INSPECTORATE 
 GENERAL OF CUSTOMS, CHINA 
 
 WITH 2 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 
 1909 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
3o7 
 
 N\Le 
 
 In first approaching the subject treated in this booklet, 
 my intention was to write a review article which 
 should compare and contrast the organisation and 
 working of gilds in China and in the Western world. 
 My writing soon over-ran the space which any review 
 editor could grant to such a subject ; and I found, 
 moreover, that the information at my disposal on 
 Chinese gilds was mainly in the shape of materiel 
 -pour servir, and that, properly speaking, no analysed 
 account of the gild system was available. I was 
 accordingly led further into my subject than had 
 been my original intention. I might even have gone 
 further and, by diluting freely, have made more of a 
 book ; but I trust that those who may read this 
 compact booklet will find that the information con- 
 tained in it will satisfy their requirements. 
 
 I bring to the subject a certain degree of personal 
 knowledge, but I have always referred to information 
 already in print, whenever it existed. Where there is 
 no reference to other authorities, the fact stated must 
 be accepted on my own authority, either from my 
 personal observation, or coming from my study of 
 Chinese history and social institutions. 
 
 Among the authorities cited, none has greater 
 weight on Chinese gilds than Dr. Daniel J. Macgowan. 
 An American citizen of the best type and duly qualified 
 Doctor in Medicine, he entered on medical mission 
 work at an early age ; and he threw himself so heartily 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 into the work that, in 1855, he refused the post of 
 American Consular Agent at Ningpo, on the ground 
 that he " had no time for other occupations." He 
 found time, however, to contribute to the Journal of 
 the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 
 on its first organisation in 1857 ; and he wrote fre- 
 quently, and on many subjects, for nearly forty years, 
 up nearly to his death, an octogenarian passed ; his 
 valuable monograph on Chinese gilds in 1889 being 
 one of his latest. It is an honour to follow in the 
 steps of this cheery and hard-working sinologue. 
 
 H. B. M. 
 
 Ewell, May 1909. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Introductory 
 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 Political conditions affecting Chinese and European gilds . 
 
 i 
 
 Economic conditions affecting Chinese and European gilds 
 
 2 
 
 Accumulation of capital in China and Europe 
 
 4 
 
 Protection given by the law in China and Europe 
 
 
 5 
 
 The Religious Fraternity . 
 
 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 The Craft Gild .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 Origin of Gilds: in England 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 in China 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 Membership: in England . 
 
 
 
 
 
 IO 
 
 in China 
 
 
 
 
 
 IO 
 
 Government : in England 
 
 
 
 
 
 ii 
 
 in China 
 
 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 Income : in England 
 
 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 in China 
 
 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 Common Worship : in England . 
 
 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 in China 
 
 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 Control of Trade: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 in England .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 18 
 
 in China .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 Silk Gild at Shanghai 
 
 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 Bankers' Gild at Shanghai 
 
 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 Bankers' Gild at Ningpo 
 
 
 
 
 
 22 
 
 Bankers' Gild at Wuhu . 
 
 
 
 
 
 22 
 
 Tea Gild at Shanghai 
 
 
 
 
 
 22 
 
 Opium Gild at Wuchow . 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 2 3 
 
 Druggists' Gild at Wenchow 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 23 
 
 Fishmongers' Gild at Ningpo 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 23 
 
 Millers' Gild at Wenchow 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 24 
 
 Standard Measures 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 24 
 
 Jurisdiction over Members: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 in England .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 25 
 
 in China .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 27 
 
 Tea Gild at Hankow 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 28 
 
 Opium Gild at Ningpo . 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 29 
 
Vlll 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Jurisdiction over Members in China (Co?itd). — 
 Silkweavers' Gild at Wenchow 
 Goldbeaters' Gild at Soochow 
 Wheelbarrow Gild at Shanghai 
 Servants' Gild at Shanghai 
 Journeymen: in England 
 
 in China. 
 Apprentices : in England 
 in China . 
 The Provincial Club . 
 Origin . 
 Membership 
 Government . 
 Income . 
 
 Common worship 
 Control of Trade 
 
 Hanyang Club at Ichang 
 Shantung Club at Ningpo 
 Jurisdiction over Members . 
 
 Disputes between members and non-members 
 
 Protection against officials 
 
 " Ningpo Joss-house" riots at Shanghai, 1874 and ii 
 
 The Gild Merchant .... 
 The Great Gild of Newchwang . 
 
 Purposes and income 
 
 Regulations for the assay of silver 
 
 Rules for exchange transactions . 
 
 Rules for regulating the grain market 
 
 Use of transfer money instead of cash 
 The Swatow Gild 
 
 Government, democratic in form . 
 
 Income 
 
 Purposes ..... 
 
 Methods of procedure in disputes 
 The Canton Co-hong and Factories 
 
 Canton the staple for foreign trade 
 
 Beginnings of foreign trade with China 
 
 The gild merchant in England 
 
 Character of English foreign trade 
 Restrictions on aliens in England 
 Restrictions alternately relaxed and re-imposed 
 
 Correspondence between Chinese and English gilds 
 
 Growth of restrictions on aliens at Canton . 
 
 First formation of Co-hong in 1720 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 IX 
 
 Final organisation of Co-hong in 1782 . 
 
 The office of Hoppo at Canton 
 
 The Viceroy and other provincial officials . 
 
 Regulations restricting the liberty of foreigners 
 
 Effect on traders' business .... 
 
 Regulation of foreign shipping 
 
 Selling of imports and buying of exports 
 
 Co-hong supported by Chinese officials 
 
 Results of working of Co-hong 
 
 Foreign trade chiefly English and American 
 
 The Canton gild merchant abolished . 
 
 TAGE 
 69 
 71 
 71 
 
 72 
 
 75 
 76 
 
 11 
 79 
 80 
 82 
 84 
 
 Index 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Shrine of the God of War in Bankers' 
 
 Gild, Shanghai Frontispiece 
 
 Entrance to Bankers' Gild, Shanghai . To face page 21 
 
THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 In her gilds, as in so many others of her institu- 
 tions, China illustrates for us Europe as it was in the 
 Middle Ages ; but, while the points of resemblance 
 are numerous, there are many differences, all equally 
 illuminative of the differences between the social and 
 political organisation of the East and of the West. 
 In China we have had for centuries a theoretically 
 autocratic government, working through a bureau- 
 cracy which, though appointed by the autocracy, has 
 been and is in many respects independent of it, and, 
 though drawn from the people, is no longer in touch 
 with them ; while the people, so long as the taxes 
 were duly paid and while there was no serious dis- 
 turbance, have lived their own life of trader and 
 farmer, in democratic equality and, for all essentials 
 of life, in freedom, asking only that the bureau- 
 cracy should leave them alone, and organising politi- 
 cally only for two purposes — protection or protest 
 against the acts of commission and of omission by 
 their officials, and rebellion. In Europe we have had, 
 during the period of greatest gild activity, sovereigns 
 playing their people against the pretensions of the 
 
 A 
 
2 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 feudal nobility, and a nobility which aimed at the 
 absorption of all executive office and was often driven 
 to ally itself with the burgesses against the centralising 
 policy of the king ; while the people, conscious of 
 their own claims, were often provided, now by the 
 king, now by the support of their feudal lords, with 
 weapons by which they were enabled to secure a step 
 ahead toward the municipal autonomy they ultimately 
 reached. In England, to take that alone of the 
 countries of Europe, we have seen the common law 
 developed under the impulse of the people and be- 
 coming the paramount law of the realm, to which the 
 king's ministers and servants and the king's subjects 
 were all equally subjected. In China the customary 
 law of the empire, while still the law under which 
 the trader in the towns and the farmer in the villages 
 both follow their vocations, has taken no such de- 
 velopment as in England, and law is not paramount, 
 nor are the emperor's ministers and servants sub- 
 jected to it. In Europe generally the administration 
 of the law is now so equitable, and even in the Middle 
 Ages was so open, that the people even then were not 
 averse to calling it in to their aid. In China, what- 
 ever the case may have been in a bygone golden age, 
 the application of the law is to-day so uncertain, and 
 its administration so much at the mercy of hidden 
 influences, that the people shrink from appealing to 
 it and prefer to settle their differences among them- 
 selves whenever possible. 
 
 These are some of the aspects suggestive of differ- 
 ence in the atmosphere in which gilds were organised 
 and developed in both East and West, and, in the 
 West, reached their decline ; but there is one motive 
 
INTRODUCTORY 3 
 
 common to both, the desire to obtain advantages 
 for one's self and to retain them, and at the same 
 time to exclude others from their enjoyment. This 
 was the prevailing motive in Europe during the 
 Middle Ages, and down even into quite modern 
 times, 1 and is in China to-day, coupled in both cases 
 with the conviction that any benefit granted to 
 another must fro tanto diminish the profit to one's 
 self. China has not yet emerged from that state ; 
 and the fate which has befallen the great London 
 companies, once so influential, but now shorn of all 
 their power, is still, or so it appears, far removed from 
 the gilds in China. These are as active and as 
 effective as in the past ; and the explanation given, 2 
 that they have remained so because they have not 
 reached that accomplishment of their mission which 
 has been reached by the gilds in Europe, only partially 
 covers the ground. It is true that the mediaeval 
 conditions prevailing both in Europe and in China 
 five hundred years ago, are still prevalent in China 
 with but slight change, while in Europe they are so 
 far altered that gilds are no longer needed for the 
 protection of the merchant and the craftsman and the 
 promotion of their special interests ; but it is equally 
 true that Europe no longer holds the opinion, once 
 generally held, that trade is a stagnant pool, and that 
 the abstraction of any portion of its content for the 
 benefit of another is detrimental to one's own interest, 
 
 1 Ashley, ii., p. 15 ; Unwin, p. 1. The powers of the English craft 
 gilds were gradually absorbed into the municipality. In France, 
 Belgium, and Holland the gilds were swept away by the French 
 Revolution ; they were abolished in Spain and Portugal in the period 
 1833-40, in Germany and Austria in 1859-60, in Italy in 1864. 
 
 2 Unwin, p. 4. 
 
4 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 while in China the people have not emerged from 
 the state in which that view is held. When China's 
 gilds shall be reduced to a stage of innocuous de- 
 suetude, it will perhaps be because the social con- 
 ditions have so much changed that their mission 
 may be considered to have been accomplished, but 
 it will also be because the gild members have formed 
 an economically truer notion of the working of 
 trade. 
 
 Another reason for the difference in the fortunes 
 of gilds in the two quarters of the globe may perhaps 
 be found in the dictum x that, " as soon as in any in- 
 dustry the amassing of great capital became feasible, 
 as in the great London companies, the gild system 
 tended to become a mere form." This condition has 
 not yet been reached in China. Great fortunes de- 
 rived from industry have been, and are, known there ; 
 but inquiry will show that they have invariably been 
 made possible by the more or less direct connexion 
 of the " merchant " with the bureaucratic world ; 
 the merchant has in such cases worked through the 
 gild, but the gild has been his servant, subserving 
 his interests in any direction that he might dic- 
 tate. In general, apart from the official circle, 
 which is drawn from the people but is armed with 
 extraordinary powers, China is a country of great 
 individual poverty, and of small accumulation of 
 capital ; the mere fact that, outside the radius of 
 foreign influence, the ordinary rate of interest per 
 mensem is but little less than the usual bankers' rate 
 in London per annum, is a sufficient indication of 
 this notorious fact. 
 
 1 Ashley, ii., p. 169. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 5 
 
 A further reason is the fact that, in China to-day, 
 the law does not give the individual any adequate 
 protection against coercion by the collective gild. 
 During the Middle Ages in Europe the individual was 
 affected by public opinion to an extent that we can 
 hardly realise, and as the fellow-citizens of a merchant 
 or craftsman were also members of a gild, the moral 
 influences brought to bear on a recalcitrant member 
 were of a kind such as we see manifested in connexion 
 with a sympathetic strike to-day in localities in which 
 trade unions may appear to dominate the law. The 
 verb " boycott " is of modern coinage, but the thing 
 has existed for centuries ; and in former times the 
 boycotted man was an outcast, not even solaced by 
 the sympathy of a political party. In China these 
 conditions still exist. Dame Rumour with her 
 thousand tongues flies from tea-house to tea-house, 
 and circulates exaggerated reports, many times worse 
 than the fact, of the fate which has befallen, or is 
 about to befall, an offender against custom, or one 
 who would injure his neighbour. In Europe, how- 
 ever, the gildsman was also a burgess, and could 
 appeal to the commune — the whole body of burgesses 
 — to protect him from oppression by a portion only of 
 the community. In China his only appeal for pro- 
 tection is to his own gild, which is oppressing him ; 
 this is his only buckler against the tyranny of the 
 officials, who are the " king's servants " but above 
 the law, and who are never natives of the town, or 
 even the province, in which they exercise their 
 functions. The Chinese gildsman has thus been 
 debarred from transferring his activities to municipal 
 government, in which he has no share or influence, 
 
6 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 and has been driven, if he would secure the pro- 
 tection necessary for his trading or his industry, to 
 increase the strength of his gild in every way. The 
 result is that he is helpless against this strength of 
 his own creating. 
 
THE RELIGIOUS FRATERNITY 
 
 The hanse or gild merchant, organised to retain 
 the advantages of trading in the locality for the 
 benefit of the denizens of the locality, does not 
 exist generally in China to-day, nor, with two or 
 three exceptions to be referred to later, is there 
 anything to show that it ever has existed ; but other 
 forms of gild, such as that exemplified in the steel- 
 yard, and in the craft or mistery, are both found 
 there in full vigour. The gild, in its restricted sense 
 of a solely religious and benevolent fraternity, also 
 exists in China, under the name of Hwei, or " Associa- 
 tion," the name also given to the secret anti-dynastic 
 and revolutionary societies which have permeated 
 the empire for a century past and more. These 
 religious associations are formed to do honour to a 
 designated demi-god or canonised worthy, as was the 
 case with the early English trade fraternities, each of 
 which was dedicated to a certain saint. The English 
 fraternities were formed to maintain chantries and 
 buy masses for the dead and prayers for the living, 
 and administer charitable funds, and to dine in con- 
 nexion with both functions. The Chinese Associa- 
 tions have never bestowed alms or administered bene- 
 volent funds, and the subscriptions are devoted to 
 making burnt offerings to their patron saint, and 
 these offerings, having thus been sanctified, are then 
 divided among the contributing members for their 
 own consumption. 1 The English fraternity seems to 
 
 1 Decennial Reports, 1892-1901, ii., p. 339. 
 
 7 
 
8 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 have been a stage generally precedent to the craft gild ; ! 
 the Chinese Association appears never to have de- 
 veloped further, unless the religious side of the trade 
 gild is an indication of such development in the past. 
 The religious feeling of the West in the Middle Ages 
 was intense, but the religious fraternity was made to 
 subserve the business purposes of the gild to which 
 it was affiliated ; religion in China to-day creates no 
 depth of conviction, and, perhaps for that reason, has 
 no influence on the craft. 
 
 1 Ashley, ii., p. 74 ; Unwin, p. 52. 
 
THE CRAFT GILD 
 
 The craft, or mistery, or company of Europe finds its 
 counterpart in China in the trade combinations 
 usually denominated Kung-so, literally " public 
 office " or " public place," which may be explained 
 as " the place for the consideration of matters of 
 common (as distinct from private) interest." They 
 are sometimes called Tang, " hall," which is also the 
 usual designation of benevolent societies, such as 
 those existing for the provision of free coffins, for 
 maintaining soup kitchens, for the rescue of stray 
 dogs, &c. 
 
 Origin. — The history of the English crafts can be 
 traced nearly back to their origin, owing to the fact 
 that they derived their powers from grants by king, 
 parliament, feudal lord, or municipality, and at times 
 were brought into political or fiscal conflict with one 
 or other ; and the records of the grants and of doings 
 under them are accessible to the historian. 
 
 In China there are no original records of the 
 past of any kind, except casual references in the 
 old chronicles and an occasional inscribed tablet ; 
 and, with numerous devastating conquests and re- 
 bellions, and an architecture worked generally in 
 wood, there are few or no surviving muniments. 
 Trade gilds have always been of purely democratic 
 origin, without grant or licence from the governing 
 powers ; this has deprived them of the dignity which 
 would entitle them to recognition by the serious 
 
io THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 (Chinese) historian, and has driven them to secret 
 methods, so much so that to-day it is not always easy 
 to obtain copies of their regulations. The Chinese 
 claim a venerable age for these organisations. The 
 preamble to the regulations of the Druggists' gild at 
 Wenchow declares that " from days of yore to the 
 present " all trades have organised by making re- 
 gulations, modified according to time and circum- 
 stances. 1 The Bankers' gild of Ningpo refers the 
 origin of its craft back to the establishment of the 
 nine Bureaux of the Treasury of the Chow dynasty 
 (b.c. 1122-255), and to the institution of different 
 standards of currency in the Han dynasty (b.c. 206- 
 a.d. 25). 2 
 
 Membership. — The aim of the English gilds was to 
 include all workers in the craft, and, in their earlier 
 policy, even to enforce membership on all, whether 
 burgesses or aliens (i.e. craftsmen from other towns, 
 English or foreign) ; 3 the later policy was to restrict 
 membership by demanding that admission should be, 
 at first, " upon the security of six reputable men of 
 such certain mistery or craft ; " then the assent of 
 the " Wardens of the same trade " was required ; 
 then (in the case of the Drapers in 1364) it was 
 ordained that " no one should use that mistery unless 
 he had been admitted by the common assent of the 
 same mistery ; " 4 then by the exaction of heavy fees 
 from apprentices admitted to the freedom of the 
 craft. 5 
 
 In China there is no question of compulsion ; the 
 craftsman who is not a gild member is as one exposed 
 
 1 Macgowan, p. 145. 2 Ibid., p. 159. 
 
 3 Ashley, ii., pp. 18, 75, 90. * Ibid., p. 77. 
 
 5 Ibid., p. 90. 
 
 
THE CRAFT GILD n 
 
 to the wintry blast without a cloak. At the same 
 time the existing members are by no means desirous 
 of having competing craftsmen free from their col- 
 lective control. The result is that membership is 
 open to all of the craft on terms laid down by the 
 gild, and that these terms are readily accepted. 
 
 Membership is generally limited to traders of the 
 town, but in some instances we have the peculiar 
 case of a craft gild of aliens excluding the towns- 
 men ; thus at Wenchow, in the province of Chekiang, 
 the Fish -hook -makers' gild is composed solely of 
 men from Foochow, the Needle-makers' gild solely of 
 craftsmen from Taichow (in Chekiang) and from the 
 province of Kiangsu, the Gold-beaters' gild solely 
 of men from Ningpo ; the men of Wenchow are 
 rigorously excluded from these gilds, and it is even 
 forbidden to give them instruction in the craft. 1 
 
 Government. — In the early days of the English crafts 
 the government was largely democratic ; the feudal 
 lord (in London the sheriff) appointed bailiffs to 
 preside over the craft halimots and to collect the 
 lord's tolls, but their authority was soon reduced to 
 a formality, and the crafts became self-governing 
 through their annual or biennial meetings and their 
 weekly courts. 2 Then wardens were elected annually 
 at full assemblies of the men of the craft, whose duty 
 was to supervise the industry and cause offenders to 
 be punished ; 3 and with the custom of commuting 
 the tolls for an annual payment, 4 and the duty of hold- 
 ing bequests in trust for the gild or religious frater- 
 nity connected with each mistery, these wardens 
 developed into governing heads. Then on the 
 
 1 Macgowan, p. 181. 2 Unwin, p. 31. 
 
 8 Ashley, i., p. 89. * Unwin, p. 36. 
 
12 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 institution of the incorporated company we have 
 a strictly oligarchical government ; x starting with a 
 uniform body of a master and four wardens, 2 in 
 time there grew up an advisory committee of usually 
 twelve " assistants," ordinarily composed of past- 
 masters and past-wardens. 3 
 
 In China the gild government is, as might be ex- 
 pected, more democratic. The Tea gild at Shanghai 
 has at its head an annually elected committee of 
 twelve, each committee-man acting in rotation for 
 one month as chairman, or manager ; no gild member 
 may refuse to serve on this committee. 4 The Bankers' 
 gild at Ningpo elects annually a treasurer and a 
 committee of twelve ; the committee-men serve each 
 in rotation for one month as manager, his principal 
 duty being to act each morning as a clearing house. 5 
 The Carpenters' gild at Wenchow elects five head- 
 men ; these present a rare case of recognition by the 
 officials of the city, certain corvee duties being de- 
 manded in return. 6 The Millers' gild at Wenchow 
 is composed of sixteen mill proprietors, who select 
 annually from their number a committee of four, in 
 such way as to bring each gild member, in his turn, 
 on the committee ; but the ruling price of flour for 
 each month is settled by the entire craft in con- 
 ference. 7 In the gild government here indicated 
 we have almost pure democracy, due partly to its 
 complete dissociation from the government of the 
 country, but more to the deep-rooted distrust of 
 delegated authority or agency which is constant in 
 every Asiatic mind. Another officer attached to 
 
 1 Unwin, p. 217. 2 Ibid., pp. 158, 159, 161. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 219. * Macgowan, p. 152. 
 
 s Ibid., p. 160. 6 Ibid., p. 173. 
 
 7 Ibid., p. 176. 
 
THE CRAFT GILD 
 
 l 3 
 
 the more wealthy craft gilds, the salaried secretary, 
 will be referred to when we come to describe the 
 provincial club. 
 
 Income. — The revenues of the crafts of England 
 came from quarterage paid by all members, from 
 penalties inflicted for breach of disciplinary rules 
 (court fines, though inflicted by the gild, going to the 
 city 1 ), from voluntary subscriptions by the more 
 wealthy members, and from the income from be- 
 quests. 2 The last was the most fruitful source of 
 revenue, but income-producing property was ordi- 
 narily bequeathed to the religious fraternity con- 
 nected with the craft, for the good of the testator's 
 soul, the gain to the craft being a charge for manage- 
 ment and some indirect benefits. In one case of a 
 bequest, in 15 15 to the fraternity of the Drapers' 
 craft, of property calculated to produce ^15, 7s. a 
 year, the income was distributed in this way : salary 
 of chantry priest, £6, 17s. 8d. ; cost of yearly obit, 20s. ; 
 an almsman at is. a week, £2, 12s. ; coals for the 
 poor, is. 8d. ; potations for the drapers attending the 
 obit, 6s. 8d. ; priests and clerk of the church for ring- 
 ing and for potations, 3s. 4d. ; the mayor and 
 sheriffs, 6s. 8d. each, the master of the Drapers, 4s., 
 the four wardens, 3s. 4d. each, the clerk, is., the 
 beadle, 4d., for attending the obit ; remains to the 
 craft, £2, 7s. 3 The first three or four items in 
 this account would be less likely than the last to 
 benefit from any increment in the income derived 
 from the property bequeathed. 
 
 The Chinese crafts have no such source of income 
 
 1 Unwin, p. 41. 
 
 2 Ibid., pp. 119, 123, 124, 221 ; Ashley, ii., pp. 90, 114, 153. 
 
 3 Unwin, p. 207. 
 
i 4 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 as pious benefactions, but none the less, while some 
 are very poor, others have large endowments from 
 the accumulated savings of years. For example, the 
 Fishmongers' gild at Ningpo is reputed to have had 
 twenty years ago a reserve fund of $700,000 (then 
 equivalent to .£125,000) ; for current income it 
 levies a tax, ultimately of course paid by the fish- 
 mongers and the consumers, on each fish-carrying 
 boat according to a published tariff ; and each fish- 
 monger, on joining the gild, deposits $3000 (£550) 
 in the gild treasury, as a guarantee fund against 
 breaches of the gild regulations. 1 The Druggists' 
 gild at Ningpo is reputed to have an annual income 
 of $500,000 (about .£85,000), but the proportion of 
 income from endowments is not stated. 2 The Tea 
 gild at Shanghai assesses its members a fixed sum for 
 each chest of tea sold by them, 4d. (in 1888) for black, 
 and 3d. for green tea ; monthly account sales are 
 sent in to the gild, and the penalty for understate- 
 ments discovered by the gild audit is a fine of fifteen 
 times the difference ; in addition there is an entrance 
 fee of $100 G£i8) and a dinner of forty or fifty plates. 3 
 The Bankers' gild at Wuhu seems to be supported by 
 a system of fines ; each member deposits a guarantee 
 fund of 100 taels (£24), and this sum is the fine in- 
 flicted for the breach of several of the rules : for 
 giving or accepting a rate for changing money other 
 than the gild rate, or another than the gild rate for 
 drafts, or giving customers another than the gild rate 
 of interest, or for ante-dating or post-dating drafts, 
 or for doing business with a banker who has not 
 renewed his deposit after being fined, or for causing 
 
 1 Macgowan, p. 171. 2 Ibid., p. 140. 
 
 s Ibid., p. 153. 
 
THE CRAFT GILD 15 
 
 loss to a fellow-gildsman by underhand dealing — 
 quite a Draconian code. 1 Entrance fees are common. 
 At Wuchow the gild of Commission Agents collects 
 on admission a fee of 180 taels, the Bankers one of 
 40 taels, the Pawnbrokers one of 200 taels, the 
 Stationers one of 50 taels, the Opium dealers one of 
 100 taels ; on the other hand, the Timber gild at 
 Wuchow collects no entrance fee, but levies a tax or 
 assessment of 1.60 tael (about 5s.) from each raft 
 passing the port ; while, as examples of other sources 
 of revenue, the gild of Commission Agents collects 
 from the principal, for the gild funds, a commission of 
 0.5 per mille on the proceeds of sales ; and the Opium 
 gild collects from the owner 2 taels (about 6s.) for 
 each basket of opium sold otherwise than through 
 members of the gild, and the latter will only sell 
 when, in their judgment, selling will not break the 
 market ; and members are fined 100 taels for breach 
 of any of the gild regulations. 2 In the Bankers' gild 
 at Ningpo the treasurer debits each member monthly 
 with an equal share of the month's expenses. 3 On 
 the other hand, the Timber gild at Ningpo assesses 
 its members according to the amount of their sales, 
 averaging one-tenth per cent, on the turnover ; an 
 audit is, as usual, provided by inspection of every 
 member's books by accountants of the various firms 
 detailed in rotation 4 — eloquent testimony to the 
 power of the gilds and the solidarity of the merchants 
 in China. These are some examples from some of 
 the wealthier crafts, but of the sources of income 
 of the poorer trades we have no certain knowledge ; 
 
 1 Decennial Reports, 1882-92, p. 289. 
 
 2 Ibid., i892-i9oi,ii., pp. 337S9- 
 
 3 Macgowan, p. 160. * Ibid., p. 139. 
 
16 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 their income is presumably derived from " quarterage," 
 equal monthly or quarterly dues from all members, 
 or in some cases from firms irrespective of the number 
 of masters and journeymen they may represent. 
 
 Common Worship. — The fraternities or gilds were in 
 England the nucleus from which, generally speaking, 
 grew the crafts or misteries. 1 The earlier fraternities 
 were essentially secret associations, and were formed 
 for all purposes, in the Middle Ages, when it was sought 
 to establish a social bond which should be at once 
 intimate, binding, and secret. 2 The religious feeling 
 of the Western world was strong, and such a feeling 
 provided a stronger bond of union than even trade 
 interest. We find accordingly that in every trade 
 was formed a religious fraternity, assumedly before the 
 formation of the secular mistery, but invariably found 
 in existence after the grant of a charter to a craft or 
 upon its incorporation as a company. Thus we find 
 that the Weavers' craft of London, chartered by 
 Henry II. (n 54-1 189), was authorised to "hold a 
 yearly gild in the Church of St. Nicholas Hacoun 
 on St. Edmund's day, to which all the mistery must 
 come on pain of a fine of 3d. ; " 3 and that the 
 Weavers' craft of Lincoln, also chartered by Henry II., 
 was granted that " no one could exercise the craft 
 within twelve miles of the city unless he belonged to 
 the gild of the weavers of Lincoln, which was con- 
 stituted in the name of the Holy Cross." 4 So, too, 
 there were the Goldsmiths' fraternity of St. Dunstan, 5 
 the Tailors' fraternity of St. John the Baptist, 6 the 
 Skinners' " fraternity or gild in honour of Corpus 
 
 1 Ashley, ii., pp. 74, 140 ; Unwin, pp. 4, 51-54. 
 
 2 Unwin, p. 67. 3 Ibid., p. 44. 
 4 Ibid., p. 94. 5 Ibid., p. 95. 
 6 Ibid., pp. 95, 158. 
 
THE CRAFT GILD 17 
 
 Christi," x the Drapers' "gild in honour of the 
 Virgin Mary," 2 and numerous others, each con- 
 nected with its own craft, each dedicated to its 
 own patron saint, and each attached to certain 
 specified church or churches. 3 
 
 There is no such distinct evidence of any strength 
 in the common worship of the craft gilds in China. A 
 new member of the Druggists' gild at Wenchow is 
 called upon to pay an entrance fee to the treasurer of 
 the temple of the God of Medicine ; 4 and, in the 
 Silk-weavers' gild of the same city, apprentices, when 
 out of their time, must pay the gild 1500 cash (5s.) 
 for temple expenses, while new gild members must 
 pay twice that sum for the same purpose ; 5 and riiany 
 gilds include among their minor penalties fines of 
 candles for the temple (so, too, in England, candles 
 and wax for the fraternity 6 ). These are indications 
 pointing to the practice of gild worship in common. 
 It may be said that there is always craft connexion 
 with some temple. At Shanghai eighteen of the 
 poorer crafts, having no gild hall of their own, hold 
 their annual meeting in the City Temple, 7 to be 
 found in every Chinese city, and these meetings have, 
 of course, some religious observance as a part of 
 them. At Wenchow the Blacksmiths' gild announced 
 a new scale of wages and prices with the following 
 in the preamble : " We convened a meeting in the 
 City Temple, and, during the theatrical entertain- 
 ment and feasting, we agreed upon a new tariff of 
 wages for work and of prices for our wares." 8 This 
 
 1 Unwin, p. 159. 2 Ibid., p. 161. 
 
 3 Ibid., pp. 107 et al. * Macgowan, p. 145. 
 
 6 Macgowan, p. 175. 6 Unwin, p. 123. 
 
 7 Decennial Reports, 1892-1901, i. p. 526. 
 
 8 Macgowan, p. 172. 
 
 B 
 
1 8 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 combination of religion, feasting, and strict business 
 is customary in China, and was customary in the 
 English crafts. An important function of the 
 English fraternity, the setting forth of pageants, 1 
 forms no part of the religious side of the Chinese 
 crafts, but the wealthier trade gilds furnish pageants 
 — because of their wealth, and solely on the secular 
 side. The main purpose of the English fraternity, to 
 act as a benevolent society for relieving the poorer 
 men and women of the craft, finds no counterpart 
 in the Chinese crafts. The English fraternities were 
 careful in attending the funerals of those of the 
 craft, and in providing lights and masses, 2 the penalty 
 for absence from either dirge or funeral being usually 
 a fine of a pound of wax. In China it is a matter of 
 pride for well-to-do families to spend large sums on 
 funerals, and customary for friends of the family 
 to send contributions toward the expenses, much 
 in the way that wedding presents are sent in the 
 West ; and the fellow - craftsmen of the deceased 
 would be among the first to contribute. For poor 
 members of the gild, contribution would always be 
 made from the gild treasury, usually taking the form 
 of a suitable coffin, and probably also of candles and 
 offerings to the manes of the deceased. 
 
 Control of Trade. — In any comparison of the powers 
 of the crafts in England and in China over their re- 
 spective trades, we must always bear in mind the 
 differences in the social environment. In England 
 we have the crafts demanding privileges from their 
 feudal lords, and later from king or municipality, and 
 obtaining by charter the grant of specified rights. 
 
 1 Ashley, ii., pp. 78-80 ; Unwin, pp. 95, 267 seq. 
 
 2 Ashley, i., p. 92; Unwin, pp. 101, 118, 214. 
 
THE CRAFT GILD 19 
 
 These rights were, in effect, always a delegation of 
 powers which, by both the theory and the practice 
 of the time, were already inherent in the grantor. 
 Taking the municipalities alone, the magistrates had 
 full authority over markets, and determined at what 
 times both burgesses and " foreigners " should offer 
 their goods for sale ; they also required dealers to 
 display openly their entire stock, to prevent regrating 
 and to allow to all a knowledge of the quantities 
 offering. 1 Magistrates also had the sole privilege of 
 tronage, or the right to establish public scales and to 
 levy tolls for their use. 2 They had the right to re- 
 strict the " use " of a craft to those who enjoyed the 
 freedom of the city, and to prescribe the conditions 
 on which alone that freedom would be granted. 3 
 They also had the power of inspection, to see that 
 none but wares of standard quality were offered for 
 sale ; and it was this power which, delegated to the 
 crafts concerned, armed them with their most potent 
 weapons. 4 The regulations of nearly all the crafts 
 conform to a common type which may be represented 
 by those of the Hatters, made in 1348, which were 
 in effect : 5 — 
 
 i°. Six lawful men to be sworn to rule the trade. 
 
 2°. None but freemen to make or sell hats. 
 
 3 . Apprentices to serve at least seven years. 
 
 4 . None to take apprentices but freemen. 
 
 5 . No night work. 
 
 6°. None of the trade to be made free of the city 
 or to be allowed to work if not attested by the 
 wardens. 
 
 1 Ashley, ii., p. 19. 2 Ibid., p. 20. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 76. 4 Ashley, ii., p. 77 ; Unwin, p. 90. 
 
 5 Unwin, p. 89. 
 
2o THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 7°. None to receive another's apprentices or 
 servants if not properly dismissed. 
 
 8°. Nor to receive them if in debt to previous 
 master. 
 
 9 . No stranger to sell hats by retail, but onlv 
 wholesale and to freemen. 
 
 Under these powers granted to many, if not all, 
 of the crafts, the fullest control was given over the 
 trades, and foreigners' wares were often seized and 
 destroyed on the ground that they were not up to 
 the civic standard. 1 This was the period, the middle 
 of the fourteenth century, when in many of the cities 
 of Europe — Paris, Florence, Ghent, Cologne, London, 
 and many others — the crafts wielded the whole power 
 of municipal government. 2 Then set in a period of 
 reaction, and, in England at least, of resumption by 
 the municipality of its abandoned authority ; and a 
 century later an act of the English parliament pre- 
 scribes that " whereas . . . gilds . . . make among 
 themselves many unlawful and unreasonable ordi- 
 nances, as well in prices of wares as other things," . . . 
 no new rules should be made for the government of a 
 trade unless first submitted for the approval of the 
 executive authorities. 3 In course of time the civic 
 control thus resumed was either dropped in favour of 
 individual initiative, or was assumed by the national 
 authority. 
 
 In China the government is solely a taxing and 
 policing organism, and its intervention in the affairs 
 of the business world, in so far as it does not spring 
 
 1 Unwin, p. 90 ; Ashley, ii., p. 77. 
 
 2 Unwin, p. 61 ; Ashley, i., p. 85. 
 
 3 Ashley, ii., p. 160; Unwin, p. 161. 
 
THE CRAFT GILD 21 
 
 from motives of personal profit to the officials, is 
 based on ethical principles, and not on economic or 
 business grounds. The trade gilds have grown up 
 apart from and independent of the government ; 
 they have moulded their own organisation, sought 
 their own objects, devised their own regulations, and 
 enforced them in their own way and by their own 
 methods. Working thus without support or re- 
 straint from the government of the empire or the 
 city, the Chinese gilds could easily have remained 
 entirely without power ; but, partly from the irre- 
 sistible dead-weight force of an Asiatic democracy, 
 partly because the agents of government are drawn 
 largely from the mercantile class, partly because the 
 gild is able to profit from the business instinct which 
 is so strongly developed in the official mind, and partly 
 because of the enormous impulsive power of a 
 mediaeval form of public opinion and the development 
 of the boycott by centuries of practical use, the gilds 
 have in fact obtained an enormous and almost un- 
 restrained control over their respective trades. To 
 classify all the forms of regulation of trades by means 
 of gild action would be impossible in a limited space, 
 and a selection is all that can be attempted. 
 
 Silk Gild at Shanghai. — The rules of this gild vary 
 so much from time to time, according to the exi- 
 gencies of trade, that it has ceased to print them. 1 
 The significant fact here is that the gild can not only 
 make its own rules, but can modify them at short 
 notice, and still secure their enforcement. 
 
 Bankers' Gild at Shanghai. — The rules prescribe a 
 charge of 0.3 to 0.5 per thousand for cashing country 
 
 1 Macgowan, p. 1 56. 
 
22 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 cheques ; fix interest on current accounts, rates 
 settled monthly in gild meeting ; on advances on tea 
 and silk the interest is 0.5 per mille per diem ; settle 
 the rate of change for paying customs duties ; pre- 
 scribe the method and fees for assaying silver ; pro- 
 hibit speculative dealings in dollars and bullion, and 
 enforce the prohibition, when it is to its interest as 
 a craft. 1 
 
 Bankers' Gild at Ningpo. — For many years this gild 
 held two meetings a day to serve as a bucket shop for 
 fictitious dealings in dollars ; twenty years ago the 
 gild put a sudden stop to the practice. The gild 
 rules provide for settling the rates of exchange for 
 dollars, interest to customers, and hours for de- 
 positing money. 2 
 
 Bankers'' Gild at Wuhu. — The rules provide for 
 settling daily the rate for changing money ; for 
 settling for drafts the number of days after sight or 
 after date ; for settling rates of exchange and of 
 interest ; forbid ante-dating or post-dating drafts ; 
 prohibit underhand dealing to the injury of a fellow- 
 member ; and prescribe that, for breach of gild rules, 
 the persistent defaulter shall be expelled and boy- 
 cotted. 3 
 
 lea Gild at Shanghai. — The rules prescribe the 
 rates for storage and insurance, conditions for ad- 
 vances to country buyers of tea, rates of commission 
 and interest on advances, the incidence and rates of 
 charges for packing, porterage, &c, and regulations 
 for samples. One rule, always enforced, and with no 
 redress by appeal to the courts, is significant of the 
 gild's power : " Pending litigation with a foreign 
 
 1 Macgowan, p. 160. 2 Ibid., p. 157. 
 
 3 Decennial Reports, 1882-91, p. 289. 
 
THE CRAFT GILD 23 
 
 firm, members of the gild shall transact no business 
 with the delinquent firm ; relations are not to be 
 resumed until the case is adjudicated." x 
 
 Opium Gild at Wuchow. — By the gild rules the 
 non-member owner may not sell his own opium, under 
 penalty of 2 taels (6s.) a basket ; and if he wishes to 
 keep his opium on his own premises for a few days, he 
 must pay 0.3 tael (is.) a basket for the privilege ; 
 commission is fixed at 2 per cent., and board at 0.12 
 tael (4-id.) a day is charged to non-member owners 
 sojourning in the gild hall ; broker allowed twenty- 
 five days for settling account sales ; gild advances 
 money against opium at 0.4 per mille per diem (141 
 per cent, per annum) ; the scale for weighing the 
 opium is prescribed, and another scale for weighing 
 the proceeds in silver ; and it is stipulated that the 
 gild is to be sole judge when the opium is to be put 
 on the market. 2 
 
 Druggists' Gild at Wenchow. — Among other rules 
 common to many gilds, this gild has one of special 
 interest. It is provided that, if A is indebted to B, 
 and transfers his business dealings to C, the gild shall 
 bring the three parties together for an amicable 
 settlement, and that meantime A is prohibited from 
 trading with C, until he has liquidated his debt to B. 3 
 
 Fishmongers' Gild at Ningpo. — The rules provide, 
 among many other stipulations, that every fish boat 
 coming in shall be reported to the gild, which, upon 
 verification of the lading, will then affix its seal to 
 the manifest ; no member (and most certainly no non- 
 member) would dare to buy a boat's lading of fish 
 which had not been duly passed by the gild. 4 
 
 1 Macgovvan, p. 151. 2 Decennial Reports, 1892-1901, ii., p. 338. 
 3 Macgowan, p. 145. * Ibid., p. 171. 
 
24 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 Millers' Gild at Wenchow. — The rules provide 
 that the gild shall settle the price of flour monthly ; 
 that no member may give credit to any one in debt 
 to another member ; that no member may grind 
 any but his own wheat bought by himself ; that (as 
 usual) the gild's measures are to be the standard ; and 
 that no abatement is to be made in favour of large 
 customers. 1 
 
 These selections are fairly typical of an infinite 
 variety of forms of craft regulation. They vary in 
 detail and in the nature of the points expressly provided 
 for ; but all Chinese trade gilds are alike in interfering 
 with every detail of business and demanding com- 
 plete solidarity of interest in their members, and they 
 are alike also in that their rules are not a dead letter 
 but are actually enforced. The result is a tyranny of 
 the many over the individual, and a system of control 
 which must by its nature hinder " freedom of enter- 
 prise and independence of individual initiative." 2 
 It is a system, however, which suits the Chinese 
 character and adds greatly to their commercial power ; 
 and while it may be true of Europe that " speaking 
 generally, we may say that, in the late Middle Ages, the 
 time had not yet come for the free play of individual 
 enterprise," 3 it is certainly true of China that she 
 will, even now, be slow to throw away the cementing 
 agency of the gild. 
 
 Standard Measures. — In England the municipality 
 was required to keep standards of weights and measures, 
 and to enforce their general adoption. In China the 
 government has never regulated or controlled the 
 
 1 Macgowan, p. 176. 2 Ashley, ii., p. 167. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 168. 
 
THE CRAFT GILD 25 
 
 operations of trade ; but each craft gild and each 
 provincial club prescribes the measures to be used, 
 and keeps standards for the guidance of their members. 
 In England there was at least one common standard 
 within the limits of one municipality ; in China, in 
 any one city, there are in effect as many standards 
 as there are gilds and clubs. 1 
 
 Jurisdiction over Members. — It is in the basis of 
 the authority conferring on craft gilds jurisdiction over 
 their members that we find the greatest difference 
 between the West and the East. In England the 
 first exercise of jurisdiction appears to have been based 
 on the commutation of market tolls for an annual 
 payment by the collective gild ; for example, the 
 Bakers' gild of London as early as the year H55_paid 
 to the Royal Exchequer £6 a year as commutation for 
 their tolls, and collected the funds in weekly pay- 
 ments of a farthing, a halfpenny, or a penny from 
 the gild members ; this necessitated joint action and 
 jurisdiction, which they exercised in hallmoots held 
 four times a year. 2 The fishmongers at an early date 
 " captured their hallmoot by silent permeation," 3 
 holding meetings twice a year, which all members of 
 the craft must attend on pain of the heavy fine of 2 id. 
 They also held a weekly court to settle disputes 
 between London fishmongers, or in which foreign 
 fishmongers were interested ; and any case affecting 
 a fishmonger could be withdrawn from the Court of 
 Hustings at Guildhall and taken before the Fish- 
 mongers' hallmoot. 4 The Weavers' gild of London 
 was established by charter of Henry II., who granted 
 
 1 " Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire," chap. vi. 
 
 2 Unwin, p. 36. 8 Ibid., p. 37. 
 4 Ibid., p. 38. 
 
26 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 them " all the liberties and customs which they had 
 in the days of his grandfather, and that none shall 
 meddle with their craft . . . except through them 
 or unless he belong to their gild," and other charters 
 were granted to other gilds by the same sovereign in 
 precisely the same terms. 1 These gilds then claimed 
 and exercised the right to have their yearly hallmoot 
 and their weekly court for hearing craft cases, and 
 to withdraw such cases from the sheriff's court to 
 their own ; they enjoyed the same privileges by right 
 of charter as those descending to the fishmongers from 
 the old folkmoot. This jurisdiction of the gilds re- 
 sembles closely the private jurisdiction in the hands 
 of the lords temporal and spiritual, which constituted 
 so large a part of local government in the Middle 
 Ages ; 2 and, when exercised by the gilds, it has been 
 called " collective lordship." This jurisdiction was, 
 however, in all cases a delegation of a part of the 
 powers of the superior authority — overlord or munici- 
 pality. At the outset, while all regulations must be 
 approved by the municipality, the gilds were ordinarily 
 empowered to deal with petty disputes or breaches 
 of rule by their members ; and by encroachment 
 more and greater powers were assumed by them until 
 they came to claiming the right to judge all pleas con- 
 nected with their craft ; 3 even when such pleas were 
 dealt with by the mayor, he generally called together 
 a jury of the craft to settle the question. 4 In time 
 municipal government gathered strength, and the 
 municipal authorities assumed the powers which had 
 been delegated by overlords, and resumed those which 
 
 ' Unwin, p. 44 ; Ashley, i., p. 86. 2 Unwin, p. 42. 
 
 3 Unwin, p. 28 ; Ashley, ii., p. 28. 
 
 4 Unwin, p. 89 ; Ashley, ii., p. 27. 
 
THE CRAFT GILD 27 
 
 had once been in their own hands ; and, in the end, 
 by the act of 1503-04, gilds are forbidden to make 
 any rules prohibiting their members from applying to 
 the king's courts. 1 In England the gilds, and their 
 members, and their trades, were all brought within 
 the law. 
 
 In China the gilds have never been within the law. 
 They grew up outside it, and, as associations, have 
 never recognised the civil law nor claimed protection 
 from it. They are rarely recognised by the govern- 
 ment, except when they take the farm of the proceeds 
 of a tax upon the commodities dealt in by the craft ; 
 and they make representations to the government 
 ordinarily through a sort of envoy, their secretary. 
 They have developed as self-governing bits of demo- 
 cracy. Such jurisdiction as they exercise is of their 
 own creation ; and, not being delegated by a superior 
 authority, there is never any question of control or of 
 resumption. Their jurisdiction over their members 
 is absolute, not by reason of any charter or delegated 
 power, but by virtue of the faculty of combination 
 by the community and of coercion on the individual 
 which is so characteristic of the Chinese race. The 
 method in which the jurisdiction is exercised is ex- 
 pressed in the rules of one gild as follows : " It is 
 agreed that members having disputes about money " 
 [and, in practice, any other] " matters with each other 
 shall submit their case to arbitration at a gild meeting, 
 where every effort will be made to arrive at a satis- 
 factory settlement of the dispute. If it prove im- 
 possible to arrive at an understanding, appeal may 
 be made to the authorities ; but if the complainant 
 resorts to the courts in the first instance, without 
 1 Ashley, ii., p. 161. 
 
28 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 first referring to the gild, he shall be publicly re- 
 primanded, and in any future case he may bring 
 before the gild he will not be entitled to redress." * 
 This rule is expressed in moderate language ; a 
 similar rule of another gild is more direct in its terms : 
 " It is agreed that after a member of the gild, an 
 individual or a firm, has been expelled, all business 
 relations with him shall cease ; any member discovered 
 to have had dealings with him, from sympathy or 
 friendship, shall be fined ioo taels." 2 In effect, sym- 
 pathisers would also run the risk of being boycotted. 
 The penalties for breach of the rules or ungild-like con- 
 duct range from a fine of candles for the temple, or 
 a dinner of ten or a score or more plates, or a theatrical 
 representation in the gild-hall or the temple, up to 
 money fines of a considerable amount, and, in the last 
 resort, to the cessation of business relations, the con- 
 demnation to trading catalepsy or death, the boycott. 
 Besides those already referred to, it will be well to 
 describe briefly some of the more characteristic modes 
 of enforcing the jurisdiction of the gilds. 
 
 Tea Gild at Hankow. — In 1883 a long pending 
 dispute between the gild and the foreign merchants 
 came to a head, the gild complaining of the constant 
 use of false weights by the Europeans, and the latter 
 complaining of the constant false samples. The 
 foreigners refused to accept the gild's suggestion for 
 a settlement, and combined to stop buying tea. The 
 gild accepted the challenge and gave orders to stop 
 selling. In the issue thus joined, the bilateral boycott, 
 
 1 Macgowan, p. 141. 
 
 2 It is uncertain if this gild was a craft gild or a provincial club, 
 but the rules relating to jurisdiction over members are identical in 
 the two. 
 
THE CRAFT GILD 29 
 
 the ever-united Chinese had the advantage over the 
 ever-disunited Europeans and carried off the victory. 1 
 
 Opium Gild at Ningpo. — In 1884 the gild farmed 
 (or commuted) the inland taxes on opium in the 
 Ningpo district of Chekiang, and, in order to bring 
 the drug under its absolute control, decreed that 
 importers, foreign or Chinese, should sell to none but 
 its members. The foreigners protested to their 
 Consuls, but the decree was obeyed. On this action 
 the British Consul at Ningpo stated : " British 
 merchants here have constantly assured me that, if 
 any member of the gild attempted to deal with them 
 except on such terms as the gild approved, and these 
 would always include purchase at below cost price, he 
 would be ostracised ; and that, if any non-member 
 ventured to similarly infringe the rules of the gild, 
 although he could in no legal sense be bound by them, 
 he would be subjected to such persecution, by means 
 of trumped-up charges or actual personal violence, as 
 these associations in China well know how to employ." 2 
 
 Silkweavers' Gild at Wenchow. — Quarrels among 
 members are to be settled by arbitration. In a small 
 matter, the one in fault is to be fined in candles ; for 
 graver offences the fine shall be a concert or a play ; 
 but a dinner shall not be imposed as a fine in quarrels. 
 For forming a partnership with a non-member for a 
 less period than five years, the penalty is a play and a 
 banquet. A member who entices another member's 
 workmen away is fined a play. 3 
 
 Goldbeaters' 1 Gild at Soochow. — A member of the 
 gild, in connivance with the magistrates, took for a 
 
 1 Macgowan, p. 167 ; Decennial Reports, 1882-91, p. 169. 
 
 2 Macgowan, p. 168. " Commercial Report by H.M. Consul on the 
 Trade of Ningpo during the year 1884," p. 21 1. 
 
 3 Macgowan, p. 175. 
 
30 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 special purpose a greater number of apprentices than 
 was allowed by the gild rules. As he was under the 
 protection of the magistrates, the gild had to walk 
 warily, but the word was passed around " biting to 
 death is no murder." Gild members to the number 
 of 1 20 each took a bite, no one being allowed to leave 
 the place whose lips and teeth were not bloody, and 
 the rebel against the gild was soon no more. 1 
 
 Wheelbarrow Gild at Shanghai. — Much of the trans- 
 port of merchandise through the narrow streets of the 
 port of Shanghai, with its large trade, is done on 
 wheelbarrows, of a special type, but having single 
 wheels with narrow tires ; the average number 
 licensed in 1907 was 7386. At the annual ratepayers' 
 meeting in March 1897, the year's budget voted 
 included an increase of the wheelbarrow monthly 
 licence fees from 400 cash (iod.) to 600 cash (is. 3d.), 
 the avowed purpose being to limit the number. The 
 barrow men refused to accede to the increase, and 
 their gild decreed a riot, which duly came off on 
 April 1st and 2nd. The riot assumed such formidable 
 dimensions that the volunteers were called out, armed 
 parties were landed from three men-of-war then in 
 port, and order was restored with much difficulty. 
 On the 7th the Municipal Council announced that 
 licences would be issued at the old rate, thus restoring 
 order and re-starting trade. This surrender to the 
 mob excited indignation, and at a mass meeting of 
 the foreign community it was voted that the increased 
 rate should be collected at all costs from July — which 
 was done without further trouble. The rate then 
 imposed, 600 cash a month, has continued to be 
 collected since. 2 
 1 Macgowan, p. 182. 2 Decennial Reports, 1 892-1 901, i., p. 468. 
 
THE CRAFT GILD 31 
 
 Servants' Gild at Shanghai. — During the riot at 
 Shanghai on December 18, 1905, it is known to 
 several then there that, as a part of the plan of rising, 
 all house servants were to have left their foreign 
 masters. The riot came off prematurely and the 
 plans were not carried through ; but servants stated 
 to their masters that, if the signal had been given, 
 they would, unwilling though they were, have been 
 under the necessity of leaving. 
 
 The Chinese trade gilds establish rules and compel 
 obedience to them ; they fix prices and enforce 
 adhesion ; they settle or modify trade customs and 
 obtain instant acquiescence ; they impose their will 
 on traders in and out of the gilds, and may even, 
 through the measure known as the " cessation of all 
 business," cause the government to modify or with- 
 draw its orders ; and their end, that of having the 
 absolute control of their craft, is obtained by methods 
 of which some are indicated above. 
 
 Journeymen. — In England early in the fifteenth 
 century we find journeymen banding together, inde- 
 pendently of the master's craft, and forming religious 
 fraternities, partly for the edifying practice of their 
 religious duties in fellowship, but also probably be- 
 cause, in such a fraternity, they could promote their 
 worldly interests without challenging the attention 
 of the authorities. After attempting to suppress 
 them, the masters in their gild took steps to bring 
 them under their own supervision, and to form of 
 them a junior branch of the craft. They were still 
 free to hold their own meetings for festivity or religion ; 
 they could subscribe their pence for mutual benefit, 
 but in other respects they fell under the control 
 
32 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 of the wardens of the craft, and did not always 
 keep the keys of their own treasury. In the end 
 they yielded to the power of the gilds and lost 
 all independent initiative, until in recent times 
 their fraternities have been revived in the trade 
 unions. 1 
 
 In China the practice differs. Trading crafts 
 often admit only one partner to represent a firm, but 
 in industrial crafts masters and artisans are equally 
 admitted to membership ; instead of standing in 
 hostile attitude to each other, they combine against 
 society at large. Occasionally journeymen may have 
 their own organisations, but generally, when they 
 feel the need of combining against the masters, they 
 do temporarily what their brethren in the West 
 formerly did permanently — they have a meeting in 
 a temple and form a fraternity, which then, when 
 their object is accomplished, is forthwith dissolved. 
 A strike for increase of wages is usually successful in 
 China ; the magistrate intervenes if it leads to serious 
 disorder, which it is his main object to avert in his 
 district ; and, as the journeymen have lean purses, 
 and are too numerous to pay otherwise, sc. in 
 their persons, it is usually the masters who become 
 anxious to settle the dispute before they attract 
 the attention of the magistrates to the possi- 
 bilities of plucking them. The journeymen, how- 
 ever, have a sufficiently wholesome fear of the possible 
 consequences not to beware of entering into strife 
 unnecessarily. 2 
 
 Apprentices. — This, as a distinct class, was of slow 
 growth in England, but, from the early part of the 
 
 1 Ashley, ii., pp. 108 seg. ; Unwin, pp. 226 seq. 
 
 2 Macgowan, pp. 170, 180. 
 
THE CRAFT GILD 33 
 
 fourteenth century, a tendency is manifest to demand 
 a minimum period of service as apprentice, usually of 
 seven years, before admitting any one to the freedom 
 of the city and of the craft. Then later in the same 
 century steps were taken to limit the number that 
 one master might have ; at first not more than he 
 could maintain, or more than he could " keep, inform, 
 and teach " ; then, in the next century a more direct 
 limitation of numbers, either one, or two, or three, 
 according to the master's standing in the craft, or 
 else an apprentice to every two or three journeymen 
 employed. The master's own children generally were 
 excepted. 1 
 
 In China we find the same control over apprentice- 
 ship. Many gilds rigidly restrict the number ; some 
 allow none but sons and nephews of gild members to 
 learn the trade ; the period of servitude varies from 
 three to five years ; generally speaking, no master may 
 employ any one who has failed to complete his term 
 of apprenticeship. The Silk-weavers-and-dyers' gild at 
 Wenchow has rules which are very typical. In this 
 gild it is ordained that — weaving is to be taught first, 
 then dyeing ; no shop may have more than one dyeing 
 apprentice ; a shop may have two weaving apprentices 
 for every three looms ; masters may have no more 
 than one member of their own family learning the 
 craft at one time ; no instruction shall be given to 
 any one not duly apprenticed ; the term of servitude 
 is five years, of which two are spent in learning to 
 weave, and three in serving the master as weaver ; 
 when out of his time the apprentice shall continue 
 to serve his late master as journeyman for two years ; 
 if the master does not wish his services, then only is 
 
 Ashley, i., p. 89 ; ii., pp. 86, 91 ; Unwin, p. 91. 
 
 C 
 
34 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 he free to go elsewhere ; an apprentice may break 
 his indenture, but in that case shall never again be 
 admitted to the craft ; apprentices are required to 
 be respectful to journeymen. 1 These rules are in 
 force in a trade gild in China to-day. 
 
 1 Macgowan, p. 174. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CLUB 
 
 The second form of Chinese gild is the Hwei-kwan, 
 " Club - house," sometimes, but not often, called 
 Kung-so, the name generally given to the craft 
 gild. It may be compared, in many of its attributes, 
 to such associations of foreign merchants as the Steel- 
 yard, the habitat in London of the merchants of the 
 Teutonic hanse. The chief interest attaching to the 
 Steelyard is not, however, in its internal organisation, 
 but in the relations between it and the staple at which 
 it was established, in the privileges granted to it and 
 the restrictions imposed upon it by the authorities, 
 national or municipal, of the trade area in which it 
 did business ; and comparison of the methods of the 
 East and the West will better be deferred until we 
 come to consider the European factories at Canton, 
 and their relations to the government and the merchant 
 gild of Canton. 
 
 The prime characteristic of the provincial club 
 is that its membership consists entirely of officials and 
 merchants foreign to the province in which it is 
 situated, and to which they have been called by their 
 official duties or by their business. It must be noted 
 that the Imperial officials in China never exercise 
 their functions in their native province, and are 
 always alien to the people under their jurisdiction ; 
 and that Chinese merchants reach out their trade 
 tentacles in all directions, and, while settling freely 
 in any of the provinces, never take root, but hold 
 
 35 
 
36 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 themselves in clannish seclusion apart from the natives 
 of the place. It must also be noted that the pro- 
 vinces of China should be thought of as kingdoms of 
 an empire, not as counties or circles of a kingdom ; 
 their relation to the empire resembles in one aspect 
 or another that of Scotland to the United Kingdom, 
 of Saxony to the German Empire, and of Kentucky 
 to the United States ; and the Cantonese is as much 
 an alien in Shanghai as the Portuguese was in Spain 
 when Philip II. was sovereign over both countries. 
 When in an alien province, therefore, or even in some 
 cases in another part of the same province, the Chinese 
 early felt the need of combining for mutual support 
 and protection, and this combination was effected 
 through the agency of the Hwei-kwan, or Club. 
 
 Origin. — One club, in the preamble to its rules, 
 boldly dates back to the mythical Emperor Shun 
 (b.c. 2256-2208), who established uniform standards 
 of length, weight, and capacity, and by whom triennial 
 examinations were first instituted ; he also ordered 
 that the cane should be substituted for the severe 
 punishments then in vogue in the schoolroom. 
 Coming to historical times, it is probable that they 
 were in existence during the Tang dynasty (a.d. 618- 
 907) ; and early in the Ming dynasty (a.d. 1368) there 
 is a certain record of a Kiangsu club at Peking. 1 
 
 Membership. — All reputable natives of the home 
 province are eligible for membership, though some- 
 times a firm may be represented only by its senior 
 partner. All who are eligible must join, if they wish 
 to do business in the alien province ; sometimes a 
 member who introduces a new arrival is paid a com- 
 mission on the new member's contribution to the 
 1 Macgowan, pp. 135, 150. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CLUB 37 
 
 Club. 1 In the clubs in Peking the official element 
 naturally predominates ; in those in the provinces 
 the greater number are merchants, since they stand 
 most in need of mutual support. The clubs at Peking 
 assist needy students, co-provincials, who come up 
 for the Imperial examinations. 
 
 Government. — The provincial club is an encamp- 
 ment in hostile territory, and it must often have 
 occasion to adopt an offensive defence ; its govern- 
 ment is, therefore, never so democratic as that of 
 the craft gild, organised for operating in the home 
 of the members. The government of the club is 
 vested in a general manager, elected annually, but 
 very commonly re-elected year after year ; there is 
 sometimes also an assistant manager ; both these 
 officers receive compensation, ranging from as little 
 as six dollars (12s.) a year to a thousand dollars (^100) 
 or more for the manager. There is also always an 
 advisory committee, from three to twelve in number, 
 serving usually without compensation, and elected 
 annually, but eligible for re-election. 2 The most 
 important officer of the club is the permanent secre- 
 tary, a salaried scholar of literary rank. By his 
 education he can conduct the club's correspondence 
 with the officials in properly turned phraseology, 
 with suitable telling quotations from the classics ; and 
 by virtue of his rank he has the entree to all govern- 
 ment offices without fear of being browbeaten, while 
 his position as the spokesman of the club gives him 
 a recognised standing. He is the medium of com- 
 munication, and appears in court as the club's legal 
 
 1 Decennial Reports, 1882-91, pp. 120, 158. 
 
 2 Macgowan, p. 138 ; Decennial Reports, 1882-91, pp. 38, 120, 
 405 ; Decennial Reports, 1892-1901, ii., p. 334. 
 
38 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 representative, pleading for its interests, demanding 
 redress for its members, defending and protecting 
 his constituents, and using his influence to get cases, 
 in which the club or its members are interested, called 
 from the national tribunals to a settlement by the 
 club. The local authorities find him useful in soliciting 
 from his club subscriptions for charities and extra- 
 ordinary occasions. 1 The co-provincial officials serving 
 in the alien province become members of the club 
 and support its interests, but they take no share in 
 its government. 
 
 Income. — The club derives the income needed 
 for its maintenance and the promotion of its interests 
 in exactly the same way as the craft gild, and what 
 has been said of the one may be taken as applying 
 to the other. 2 Two special points may be noted. In 
 the rules of the Hanyang club at Ichang (an instance 
 of a club representing another district of the same 
 province) it is provided that members shall be assessed 
 0.3 per cent, on their trade, and that strangers (pre- 
 sumably temporary visitors) from Hanyang shall pay 
 to the club treasury 3 per cent, on the value of any 
 trade done by them. 3 The rules for the " Memorial 
 Chapel erected in the Kiangnan {i.e. Kiangsu and 
 Anhwei) club to canonised worthies from Kiangnan " 
 at Chungking, while leaving the amount of the bene- 
 factions of others subject to their own wish, stipu- 
 late that, when they visit the shrine for sacrifice, 
 co-provincials who fill the official post of Taotai or 
 Prefect shall contribute 4000 cash (8s.) each, and 
 that of Ting or Hien 2000 cash (4s.) each for them- 
 
 1 Macgowan, p. 138; Decennial Reports, 1882-91, p. 405. 
 
 2 Macgowan, p. 139 ; Decennial Reports, 1882-91, pp. 38, 122, 
 158, 405 ; Decennial Reports, 1S92-1901, ii., p. 334. 
 
 3 Decennial Reports, 1882-91, p. 158. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CLUB 39 
 
 selves and their retainers. 1 In the clubs at Foochow 
 (and probably elsewhere) it is a general custom to 
 demand a contribution from a co-provincial who 
 comes to fill one of the higher posts. The Hupeh 
 club has the following tariff : Viceroy, 600 taels (£90) ; 
 Literary Chancellor, 500 taels (£75) '■> Provincial 
 Treasurer, 400 taels (£60) ; Provincial Judge, 300 
 taels (£45) ; Taotai, 240 taels (£36) ; and Prefect, 
 200 taels (£30). From a Viceroy the Kiangsu club 
 demands 500 taels (£75) '■> tne Kiangsi club, 200 taels 
 (£30) ; and the Anhwei Club only 40 taels (£6). 2 
 
 Common Worship. — What has been said of the 
 common worship of the craft gilds applies also very 
 closely to that of the provincial clubs, with one dis- 
 tinction. The club can hardly be expected to feel 
 any special reverence for the alien city temple, and 
 generally provides for worship in its own club-house. 
 When funds permit, this is usually done in connection 
 with provision for theatrical representation — an open 
 courtyard for the generality, galleries on both sides 
 for privileged spectators, the stage at one end and the 
 altar at the other. 3 The altars are dedicated to minor 
 gods, such as the God of War, the Queen of Heaven, 
 or the Goddess of Mercy, or to canonised Emperors, 
 such as Yii the Great (|b.c. 2198) and Wu Tsung of 
 the Tang dynasty (fA.D. 847), or to canonised 
 worthies, natives of the home province. 4 One im- 
 portant duty of the clubs is never neglected, that of 
 providing for the suitable burial of the dead. They 
 invariably have their own cemetery, in which they 
 
 1 Decennial Reports, 1882-91, p. 122. 
 
 2 Decennial Reports, 1892-1901, ii., p. 114. 
 
 3 Macgowan, p. 139. 
 
 * Decennial Reports, 1882-91, pp. 120, 539; Decennial Reports, 
 1 892-1901, ii., p. 334- 
 
4-o THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 grant graves for their poorer members, in order that 
 their bones may lie in ground which is a substitute 
 for their native soil ; and for them they provide 
 coffins, either free or at reduced cost. They as in- 
 variably have a mortuary, in which may be deposited 
 the coffined bodies of the wealthier members, waiting 
 days, months, or years for the accomplishment of 
 the desire of all Chinese, that their bones may be 
 taken back for burial in their ancestral home. 
 
 Control of Trade. — The craft gild operates on the 
 industry of a certain defined area, and within that 
 area the conditions of Chinese life make it easy for 
 the collective craft to exercise the most absolute 
 control over all who " use " the craft, over the artisan 
 who produces or the trader who sells and exports 
 the product. The provincial club is designed to 
 control the movement of trade, nominally that to 
 and from the home province, although, in point of 
 fact, there is no such limitation ; and it is organised 
 to push the individual and collective interests of the 
 body of aliens who constitute its membership, and 
 to protect those interests against the hostility of the 
 natives and the extortion of the officials. The pre- 
 amble to the rules of the Ningpo club at Wenchow 
 declares : " Here at Wenchow we find ourselves 
 isolated, mountains and seas separate us from Ningpo, 
 and when in trading we excite the envy and hostility 
 of the Wenchow traders, and suffer insult and injury, 
 we have no adequate means of redress. Mercantile 
 firms, if each looks only after its own interests, will 
 experience disgrace and loss, the natural outcome of 
 isolated and individual resistance. It is this which 
 imposes on us the duty of establishing a club." x 
 
 1 Macgowan, p. 136. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CLUB 41 
 
 An application of the old illustration of the faggot 
 of sticks. The control over those engaged in trading 
 may be exemplified from the rules of the Hanyang 
 club at Ichang x : — 
 
 i°. Each firm pays to the club 0.3 per cent, of 
 the value of its trade annually, the club auditing its 
 books. 
 
 2°. Firms which subscribed to the erection of 
 the club-house pay entrance fee 1.6 per cent, of their 
 capital as shown in their books, and are then exempt 
 from further payment. 
 
 3 . Members are taxed for boats they own or 
 charter, 300 cash (9d.) 2 for each trip of a small boat, 
 larger boats in proportion. 
 
 4 . Workmen pay 30 cash (^d.) a month to the 
 club ; their employers, if not otherwise contributing, 
 are also liable for a tax to the club. 
 
 5 . Clerks pay 2 per cent, per annum of their 
 salary. 
 
 6°. Clerks starting in business on their own account 
 pay 1000 cash (2s. 6d.) for the right to a sign-board, 
 in addition to the usual fees. 
 
 7 . Merchants opening a shop or office for the 
 first time pay 2000 cash (5s.) for their sign-board, and 
 1000 cash (2s. 6d.) as entrance fee. 
 
 8°. New-comers of the workmen class pay 1000 
 cash (2s. 6d.) entrance fee. 
 
 9 . Firms opening a branch have an additional fee 
 to pay. 
 
 io°. Strangers from the home district must pay 
 
 1 Decennial Reports, 1882-91, p. 158. 
 
 2 In all conversions account is taken of the date of the authority 
 quoted, the rate of exchange having varied greatly in the last thirty 
 years. 
 
42 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 the club 3 per cent, of the value of any trade done 
 by them. 
 
 n°. Such strangers coming to sell cotton cloth 
 pay 4 cash ( T Vd.) on each large piece, and 2 cash Qjjd.) 
 on each small piece sold. 
 
 12°. Members going into partnership with out- 
 siders pay according to their share in the partnership. 
 
 1 3 . Any member first reporting the arrival of a 
 townsman is paid one-tenth of the new-comer's con- 
 tribution to the club. 
 
 14 . A member in default with his dues is dealt 
 with. Any one giving support to a defaulter is fined. 
 
 These rules seem to provide a fine-meshed net to 
 sweep into the club treasury something from every 
 operation of trade. The control over these opera- 
 tions may be exemplified from a summary of the 
 rules of the Shantung club at Ningpo : 1 
 
 Credit.— All dealing to be in dollars [thereby 
 eliminating the question of exchange between the 
 Shantung tael of the club and the Ningpo tael of the 
 locality]. Payment for grain in forty days, for oil 
 and beancake fifty days, for goods in bundles sixty 
 days, from date of bill of sale. Breaches of this rule 
 entail on both seller and buyer a fine of a theatrical 
 performance and a dinner. 
 
 Delivery. — Free storage is allowed for no more than 
 seventy days ; after that storage must be charged. 
 Delivery from ship within ten days. Fire risk on 
 seller within five days of sale, after that on buyer. 
 
 New Tear.— [All Chinese accounts must be settled 
 on or before the last day of the year, unless otherwise 
 
 1 Macgowan, p. 1 50. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CLUB 43 
 
 provided for by a public authority ; most clubs and 
 most of the trading craft gilds forbid re-opening for busi- 
 ness before the fifteenth day of the first month.] This 
 club provides that goods sold in the tenth month are 
 to be paid for on the twenty-fifth of the twelfth month, 
 and those sold in the eleventh are to be paid for on the 
 fifteenth of the second month of the new year. Sales 
 in the twelfth month are to be reckoned as if made 
 on the first of the second month in the following 
 year. 
 
 Weighing. — Besides keeping the usual standard 
 weights, the club prescribes that the ordinary sixteen- 
 ounce-to-the-pound steelyard is to be the standard, 
 and to be used by every firm belonging to it ; that 
 weighing is to be done in the presence of both parties ; 
 and that no claim for short weight can be entertained 
 afterwards. 
 
 Fictitious buying and selling is strictly prohibited ; 
 offenders to be reported to the magistrate. Other 
 offences are dealt with and penalties inflicted by 
 the club. 
 
 There are other rules regulating the rate and in- 
 cidence of charges for porterage, for packing, &c. &c, 
 and settling the tare for various kinds of goods. 
 
 The provincial club exercises a control over its 
 members and their trade, as absolute as the control 
 of the craft gild, but with some limitations where the 
 operations of trade are not entirely within the club, 
 and these it is now necessary to examine. 
 
 Jurisdiction over Members. — In its jurisdiction in 
 cases between two members, or when a member has 
 contravened its rules, the provincial club is absolute. 
 The Hu-Kwang (Hupeh and Hunan) club at Wuchow 
 
44 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 declares : l " The club is established to encourage 
 fraternal relations between our fellow-provincials, and 
 not for litigation or the adjudication of cases ; but 
 should disputes arise between members, the matter 
 shall be laid before the club, and the president will 
 give his decision on it after careful consideration. 
 Any member who, without authorisation, ventures 
 first to appeal to a court of law, shall be fined." In 
 all probability he would be dealt with much more 
 seriously than by a mere fine. In the rules of the 
 Canton club at Wuchow, it is provided that, in the 
 event of a dispute between two members, the com- 
 plainant shall first pay the club 200 cash (6d.) for the 
 expenses of a meeting ; the president straightway 
 adjudicates on the case in conjunction with the 
 advisory committee ; and, if his decision is not 
 acceptable, he then allows an appeal to the courts. 2 
 So far all is clear sailing, since the club is dealing 
 only with its own members ; but it has two other 
 functions to perform of much greater importance — 
 to protect its members from adverse action by the 
 officials, and to support its members' interests against 
 non-members — and in these two respects, unless the 
 matter in dispute can be arranged by arbitration, 
 which the Chinese would always prefer, recourse must 
 be had to official or legal proceedings. 
 
 In disputes between members and traders of the 
 locality or from a third province, when an amicable 
 settlement is found to be unobtainable, an example 
 of the mode of procedure may be found in the rules 
 of the Canton club at Pakhoi. Therein it is provided 3 
 
 1 Decennial Reports, 1 892-1901, ii., p. 336 ; Macgowan, p. 141. 
 
 2 Decennial Reports, 1892-1901, ii., p. 334. 
 
 3 Macgowan, p. 136. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CLUB 45 
 
 that the club " undertakes to prosecute at law on 
 behalf of its members, when satisfactory proof is 
 produced of the equity of their claims. When a 
 member has occasion to go to law to obtain redress 
 for a serious grievance and finds his resources inadequate 
 for prosecuting the suit, the club will, conjointly with 
 the complainant, petition the court praying for an 
 adjustment of the dispute ; half the cost of legal 
 proceedings in such a case will be defrayed from the 
 club funds ; but if it is found that the complainant 
 has a bad case, or that his trouble has come from his 
 irregular life, no claim for assistance will be entertained 
 further. If a member goes to law to effect settlement 
 of a money claim, the club will defray three-tenths 
 of the cost of legal proceedings ; but before the case 
 is taken up, the unanimous consent of members 
 present at a meeting called to consider it shall be 
 obtained." 
 
 For action taken by a club to protect its members 
 against harsh dealing and oppression by the authorities 
 of the place, a characteristic instance is that of the 
 Ningpo club at Wenchow just a hundred years ago, 
 in the reign of Kiaking. There was then a scarcity of 
 rice in the neighbouring provinces, while southern 
 Chekiang had had an abundant harvest. Ningpo 
 traders at Wenchow, under the general authority of 
 an Imperial edict permitting the shipment of rice 
 from any one part to any other part of the empire, 
 chartered vessels for the purpose of exporting rice ; 
 but the local authorities, always desirous of preventing 
 any increase in the price of food within their juris- 
 diction, refused to admit the applicability of the edict 
 to the existing conditions at Wenchow, and seized 
 the vessels and placed the merchants under arrest. 
 
46 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 The club, failing to obtain redress locally, appealed 
 to the higher authorities at Hangchow, the provincial 
 capital ; failing in this appeal, they carried the matter 
 to the Imperial Government at Peking, and there, 
 with the backing of their compatriots among the 
 officials of the central administration, the aggrieved 
 merchants had the justice they prayed for. 1 
 
 The so-called " Ningpo Joss-house " riots at 
 Shanghai in 1874 and in 1898 afford an illustration 
 of the methods adopted by a provincial club, when it 
 finds its interests or those of its members injured by 
 the action of governmental officials or the hostile 
 attitude assumed by a large body of traders alien to 
 them. Of all the provincial clubs at Shanghai, that 
 of the men of Ningpo is the wealthiest and the most 
 influential ; its club-house, a favourable specimen of 
 Chinese architecture, is situated in the French Settle- 
 ment. At Shanghai the three (French, English, and 
 American) " areas reserved for foreign residence and 
 trade " are settlements, and not concessions, though 
 the French authorities have always called that under 
 their control " Concession Francaise." Within their 
 limits foreigners are permitted to acquire land by 
 agreement with the original owners, and to exercise 
 exclusive municipal authority ; but the ground has 
 not been leased to the foreign government, as in a 
 concession, and the titles to property are issued by 
 the Chinese authorities. The property of the Ningpo 
 club had remained in its own control, but was of 
 course subject to the police, sanitary and road regula- 
 tions of the government of the municipality in which 
 it was situated. In the spring of 1874 it was decided 
 to make two new roads through what was then nearly 
 1 Macgowan, p. 137. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CLUB 47 
 
 open country, running past two sides of the club- 
 house, and both intersecting the club's cemetery, 
 crowded with graves as close as they could lie. Of 
 all the duties of a provincial club, that of providing 
 the mortuary and the cemetery is held to be the most 
 important ; and any action affecting either adversely 
 is most deeply resented, respect for the dead and 
 the desire to rest in the home soil being most deeply 
 implanted in the Chinese character. The club com- 
 mittee protested against the proposed violation of 
 their consecrated ground, and, while undertaking to 
 abide by any others of the municipal regulations, 
 refused to consider any proposal to run roads through 
 the cemetery in which lay the bones of so many of 
 their compatriots. The municipality insisted on the 
 letter of its rights, and the Chinese from Ningpo 
 assembled in their thousands to assert the spirit of 
 their rights. The riot which ensued lasted two days, 
 entailed landing armed sailors from the ships of war 
 and calling out the volunteers from all the Settlements 
 to preserve the common peace, and resulted in the 
 killing of eight Chinese and serious injury to many, 
 foreign and Chinese. Peace was restored on the 
 second day, May 4th, upon the French Consul-General 
 entering into a formal agreement to respect the re- 
 cognised rights of the club, and an undertaking that 
 its cemetery should not be disturbed. 1 This settle- 
 ment was confirmed in the most explicit terms by 
 the French Minister in 1878. 
 
 In 1898 the club-house and its cemetery were 
 
 surrounded by houses, and on sanitary grounds 
 
 the municipal authorities decided that the mortuary 
 
 and cemetery should be removed. They accordingly 
 
 1 North-China Herald, May 10, 1874. 
 
48 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 notified the committee of the club that they had 
 decided to expropriate, at its assessed value, the 
 ground occupied by the club's mortuary, with its 
 included shrine, and by the cemetery, for the purpose 
 of erecting a school and hospital for Chinese, and of 
 continuing the street which ended at the cemetery 
 wall. The club paid no attention to this ex 'parte 
 notice, and on the due date the municipal authorities 
 proceeded to raze the cemetery walls, having first 
 taken the precaution to mass their police, to warn 
 the volunteers of the Anglo-American Settlement, and 
 to have men landed from the war vessels in port. 
 The desecration of the cemetery aroused the Chinese 
 to fury, and the scenes of 1874 were repeated. The 
 riot which ensued lasted two days, resulting in the 
 killing of upwards of twenty Chinese and injury to 
 many others. While the riot was at its height the 
 club decreed the " cessation of business " by all men 
 of Ningpo — bankers, merchants, artisans, servants, 
 stevedores, wheelbarrow-men, &c. &c. ; the decree 
 was generally obeyed, and the trade of the wealthy 
 port of Shanghai was held up for several days. In 
 the result, the agreement of 1874, confirmed in 1878, 
 was upheld, and the club remains in undisturbed 
 possession of its mortuary and cemetery. 1 
 
 1 Decennial Reports, 1892-1901, i., pp. 469, 524. 
 
THE GILD MERCHANT 
 
 Of the gild merchant, organised by the entire 
 body of merchants of a locality, to regulate the trade 
 of the locality and to divert its course to their own 
 benefit, there are only three well-marked instances in 
 the history of gilds in China. 
 
 THE GREAT GILD OF NEWCHWANG 
 
 The membership of the Great Gild is composed 
 of the principal Chinese bankers and merchants of 
 the port of Newchwang. From each of the two 
 divisions of the town, the Eastern and Western, are 
 elected annually a president and a vice-president, 
 constituting a committee of four, who govern all gild 
 matters. The duties assumed by the gild may be 
 divided into two categories. As an unofficial munici- 
 pality it performs duties which, in China, are con- 
 sistently neglected by the constituted authorities : 
 maintains streets, drains, and reservoirs ; controls 
 the common lands ; relieves the poor ; maintains or 
 supports charitable societies, &c. As a gild merchant 
 it draws up and enforces regulations for the control 
 of banking, markets, trading, &C. 1 
 
 The income required to provide for the expenses 
 of the gild are derived from fees levied on the trade 
 of the port, of which the following are typical : — 
 
 i°. On all trading operations between (Chinese) 
 merchants not belonging to Newchwang, y 1 ^ per cent. 
 
 1 Decennial Reports, 1882-91, p. 34. 
 49 
 
5 o THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 2°. Bridge dues, 8 cash (fd.) for each cart carrying 
 fuel, and 16 cash (id.) for each cart carrying other 
 commodities. 
 
 3°. Annual dues from members, divided into eight 
 classes, of which the highest pays iooo tiao 1 (.£25) 
 a year. 
 
 The presidents for the year are often required 
 to pay for the honour by disbursing considerable 
 sums from their private funds. 
 
 The gild's control over trade may be exemplified 
 by the following sets of regulations drawn up at 
 various times. 
 
 Regulations for the Assay of Silver 
 
 i°. The standard for silver is 992 fine, and no one 
 shall cast ingots of another fineness. 
 
 2°. A premium of 1.5 tiao (about 0.27 per cent.) 
 is allowed on each 50-tael ingot of silver 1000 fine 
 brought to be remelted. 
 
 3 . For each 50-tael ingot a charge of 2 tiao 
 (0.36 per cent.) for Tientsin, Shanghai or Fengtien 
 silver 992 fine, and of 1.5 tiao for Kirin silver. 
 
 4 . Silver of 998 fine, coming chiefly from Chihli 
 and Shantung, to be taken at par ; but on lower 
 grades, less than 998 and more than 992, a charge of 
 1.5 tiao for each 50 taels. 
 
 5 . A charge of 32 cash (about 2 per cent.) per 
 tael on Kulow silver in small lumps 992 fine. 
 
 6°. For other and inferior silver, the charge to 
 be determined by the degree of fineness. 
 
 7 . No banker or assayer is allowed to cut rates, 
 
 1 The tiao, elsewhere of iooo cash, or, in North China, of iooo 
 nominal = 500 actual cash, in Newchvvang contains iooo nominal = 
 160 actual cash. 
 
THE GILD MERCHANT 51 
 
 nor to impress his die on any ingots not cast by 
 himself. 
 
 8°. Charges not provided for above to be settled 
 by agreement between the parties. 
 
 9 . Penalties, 1 per cent, of the value of the silver 
 involved. 
 
 Rules for Exchange Transactions 
 
 i°. A commission not exceeding 2 per cent, may 
 be charged by bankers on all moneys passing through 
 their hands on account of non-members ; and the 
 banker shall guarantee the quality of the silver paid 
 out. 
 
 2°. All exchange transactions are to be conducted 
 in open market, but, during the hours the exchange 
 is closed to public business, bankers will be allowed 
 to negotiate bills for sums not exceeding 100 taels. 
 
 3 . The money market shall be open only to 
 members of the gild, and to such merchants from 
 other towns as have been introduced by a member. 
 Visitors, however, shall not be allowed to bid in the 
 market, and all their business must be transacted 
 through a member. 
 
 Rules for Regulating the Grain Market 
 
 i°. A stone pillar has been erected to mark the 
 eastern limit of the grain market ; any one buying 
 grain outside this limit will be fined 100 tiao (£2, 10s.), 
 and similarly buying fuel or straw 30 tiao (15s.). 
 
 2°. Carters (q.v. vendors) altering on their contract 
 notes (actually on the thill of the cart) the price 
 agreed upon by the merchant for their cartload, shall 
 be fined 10 tiao (5s.) if carrying grain, and 4 tiao (2s.) 
 if carrying fuel or straw. 
 
52 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 3°. Any one trying to break a bargain between a 
 carter and a merchant, as by offering higher prices, 
 shall be fined 30 tiao (15s.). 
 
 One method of regulating the trade of the port 
 in the interest of the gild members is peculiar to 
 Newchwang, and, in describing it, it is necessary to 
 use the past tense, since the influx of foreign interests 
 and the general introduction of foreign bank-notes 
 since 1900, and more especially since 1905, has worked 
 a great change, and probably relaxed the grasp of 
 the gild on the trade of the port. A merchant selling 
 imports, nominally for cash, was, unless he was willing 
 to submit to a discount of from one to five per cent, 
 according to the market rate, compelled to accept 
 payment in " transfer money," i.e. by cheque, giving 
 him a credit at a bank. Specie, too, in the place was 
 attracted to the banks by the offer of a premium, 
 ranging from 0.2 to as much as 6 per cent., and could 
 be withdrawn only on quarter day, four times a year ; 
 withdrawal was discouraged by crediting the account 
 quarterly with premium, if not withdrawn, at the 
 same rate as if deposited. During the deposit, while 
 the money could not be withdrawn, cheques could be 
 drawn a?ainst it for " transfer " to the account of 
 
 O 
 
 another, not necessarily at the same bank. Exports, 
 too, could be bought only with " transfer money " ; 
 and all quotations for drafts on other places were in 
 terms of transfer money. Except for copper coinage, 
 there never was money in Newchwang outside the 
 banks, members of the gild ; and aliens were driven 
 to take in goods for export the proceeds of sale of 
 their imports, and always through the agency of 
 members of the gild. No one had cash to offer, 
 
 
THE GILD MERCHANT 53 
 
 except at heavy cost, and no one was in a position to 
 act independently, even if the Great Gild had been 
 as weak as it was strong, and if it could be imagined 
 as permitting what, in fact, it never did permit. 
 
 THE SWATOW GILD 
 
 Swatow itself is an unimportant place, with a 
 population estimated at 65,000, and a trade in 1907 
 valued at 45,000,000 taels (£7,250,000). The people 
 of the country and coast around are, however, indus- 
 trious workers and hardy fishermen, and the merchants 
 are adventurous traders, whose influence is felt in 
 every port along the coast. The people are exceed- 
 ingly clannish, and to injure a Swatow man is to plunge 
 the hand into a nest of hornets. The trade of the 
 port is absolutely, in its minutest detail, under the 
 control of the " Swatow Gild," the Wan-nien-feng 
 (" Prosperity for a myriad years "), and the Swatow 
 men in other ports are as completely organised in 
 provincial clubs, working in conjunction with the 
 home gild and under its guidance. 
 
 The home gild, though a fighting body, is under 
 a government which in form is very democratic. It 
 is divided, territorially, into two divisions, each of 
 which elects annually twenty-four firms as repre- 
 sentatives, making a committee of management of 
 forty-eight members. The routine business of the 
 gild is managed by four clerks, nominated by four 
 members of the committee, two from each division 
 in rotation, the four serving as accountants and 
 treasurers for one month. In important affairs the 
 committee is advised by three secretaries, one to 
 represent each of the divisions, and the third being 
 
54 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 the salaried literate secretary, whose qualifications 
 and duties have been described in connexion with 
 the provincial clubs. While the government is thus 
 democratic, in practice a question affecting any branch 
 of trade is first discussed among the principal firms 
 whose interests are touched ; having come to an 
 agreement, the smaller firms concerned are taken into 
 their council ; and when all are agreed, then the 
 matter is brought before the gild. At the gild 
 meetings there is seldom any discussion, and if there 
 is likely to be much opposition to the proposed 
 measures, the matter is withdrawn. In the more 
 serious questions, especially where the government 
 is concerned, there is no debate and no record ; and, 
 if there seems to be a general feeling that the matter 
 should be proceeded with, it is left to the prime 
 movers to take the necessary steps, strong in the 
 knowledge that they have the full power of the gild 
 behind them, and yet able to maintain all the secrecy 
 of private initiative. 1 
 
 Of the Swatow clubs, that at Chefoo may serve 
 as type. The government is in the hands of a com- 
 mittee formed by a representative of each of the lead- 
 ing firms, six to eight in number. The committee- 
 men take turn in assuming the presidency for one 
 month each. The committee seldom meets, and the 
 president of the month acts in all matters on his own 
 initiative, but he does not often disregard the wishes 
 of the firm which may, at the time, be of the greatest 
 importance. The club has also a literate secretary. 2 
 
 The income of the home gild is provided by taxes 
 on the trade of the port according to a tariff as elaborate 
 in some ways as that of a custom-house, including 
 1 Decennial Reports, 1882-91, p. 537. 3 Ibid., p. 77. 
 
THE GILD MERCHANT 55 
 
 fees on steamers, sailing-vessels and junks, owned or 
 chartered by members, payable on each entry of the 
 vessel ; and taxes, either per package or ad valorem, 
 on about fifty enumerated categories of goods. Money 
 fines are not mentioned ; any member absent from the 
 festival of the Queen of Heaven, the patroness of the 
 gild, is fined 10,000 fire-crackers ; the same penalty 
 is inflicted for non-attendance at a special meeting. 1 
 The income of the club at Chefoo comes from a 
 similar taxation of the members' trade, but it is 
 provided that underdeclaration is to be punished by 
 a fine of ten times the amount sought to be evaded — 
 a provision apparently not needed in the home gild. 2 
 
 The duties undertaken by the gild are so broad in 
 their nature that they may be summarised in a few 
 words. It concerns itself with the commercial in- 
 terests, individual and collective, of its members ; 
 enacts and enforces rules regulating trade ;• performs 
 many of the functions of a chamber of commerce, a 
 board of trade, and a municipal council. It supports 
 a fire brigade, levies its own taxes, provides standard 
 weights and measures, fixes rates of commission, 
 determines settling days, provides penalties against 
 frauds and tricks of trade, and acts generally as the 
 guardian of the interests of its members and the terror 
 of all who would injure them. 3 
 
 When the gild wishes to enforce its decrees, there 
 are no inflammatory placards and no riots ; it would 
 seem almost as if an aura pervaded the minds of 
 members of the gild, leading them, without pre- 
 concert, to do the same thing at the same time in the 
 same way. A steamship company, in order to close 
 
 1 Decennial Reports, 1882-91, p. 539. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 78. 3 Ibid., p. 538. 
 
56 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 a loophole for possible fraudulent claims, inserts a 
 clause in its bill of lading without previous consulta- 
 tion with the gild. A few friendly, very friendly, 
 hints are given, but there is no formal protest ; only 
 merchants, apparently without reason, cease to ship 
 by the steamers of that company ; a sugar refinery 
 at another port, under the management of the same 
 firm, suddenly remarks a serious falling off in its orders ; 
 and when the loss in all directions has assumed serious 
 proportions, the hint is probably taken and the ob- 
 noxious clause struck out of the bill of lading. A 
 steamship company, the same or another, refuses to 
 pay a claim for damaged uninsured cargo, holding 
 that the damage was properly a subject for insurance ; 
 this may happen once or twice, without more than a 
 protest from the firm directly concerned ; but if it 
 happens repeatedly, no matter how much the company 
 may be in the right by its own national law, the 
 gild takes action. There are no lawsuits, not even a 
 reference to arbitration ; the company finds its freights 
 falling off, and is soon brought to view that class 
 of claims with a more lenient eye ; it assumes the 
 insurance which once it held the shipper should have 
 provided, and does not even attempt to pass it on by 
 adding to the rates of freight. 
 
 In 1 88 1 the customs at Swatow imposed a heavy 
 fine on some merchants for breach of a customs rule 
 relating to the examination of cargo. The merchants 
 felt themselves aggrieved, and the gild supported 
 them. The import and export trade of the port 
 came to a sudden standstill, and it was intimated, 
 by no one in particular, that it would not be resumed 
 until the grievance was redressed. In this case, not 
 dealing with the weak backbone of a Chinese official, 
 
THE GILD MERCHANT 57 
 
 but with the foreign control of the Maritime Customs, 
 the gild did not gain its point ; but it persisted for 
 fifteen days, during which time the external trade of 
 the port absolutely ceased. 
 
 In 1890 the provincial authorities imposed a new 
 tax on trade, to which the people of Swatow objected. 
 Special agents were sent from Canton, the provincial 
 capital, to collect it ; but when they arrived at Swatow, 
 no dealer in the taxed articles offered to pay the tax, 
 or even to commute it ; the agents could find no one 
 willing to rent them premises in which to establish 
 their office ; and ultimately they returned to Canton, 
 carrying the tax law back with them unenforced. 
 
 THE CANTON CO-HONG AND FACTORIES 
 
 In the trade between China and Western nations, 
 from 1757 down to 1842, Canton was the " staple " ; 
 the " Thirteen Firms," commonly called the Co-hong, 
 corresponded to the gild merchant, or hanse, as closely 
 as the differences between the social conditions of the 
 East and the West would permit; and the foreign 
 factories were forced, long after the institution had 
 disappeared from Western Europe, to assume many 
 of the attributes of the branch of the hanse stationed 
 for trade in foreign parts, which it will be convenient 
 to designate as the Steelyard, the name given to the 
 Teutonic hanse in London. 
 
 " The staple was an appointed place to which all 
 English merchants were required to take their wool 
 and other staple commodities for sale. Its purpose 
 was to bring merchants so closely together that trade 
 might be more easily regulated and supervised, and, 
 especially, in order that the customs duties might be 
 
58 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 more easily levied. . . . We cannot, indeed, help 
 seeing that fiscal motives largely prompted the various 
 regulations, and that the power of removing the 
 staple . . . was valued by the sovereigns as a useful 
 weapon of diplomacy." 1 The English staple was at 
 first placed abroad, usually at Bruges, frequently at 
 Antwerp, sometimes at other towns ; then several 
 towns in England were selected, and foreign merchants 
 were forced to come to England to buy ; then on the 
 conquest of Calais, that town was selected as being 
 both abroad and in English territory, and it remained 
 the staple permanently. With place-names changed, 
 this description applies closely to Canton. 
 
 The Portuguese were the first to enter into the 
 China trade, in 15 16, and they traded at various places 
 along the coast — Lampaco, Canton, Amoy, Chinchew, 
 Foochow and Ningpo ; they conducted themselves 
 arrogantly, and, after the great slaughter of them at 
 Ningpo, they settled in 1557 at Macao, which then, 
 and down to 1848, was under Chinese territorial and 
 fiscal control. The Spanish were the next, first 
 visiting China in 1575, but their carrying trade they 
 left to the Chinese trading with Manila. The Dutch 
 came in 1622, and, after attempts, first on Macao and 
 then on the Pescadores, settled to trade in Formosa ; 
 driven from there in 1662, they traded at Amoy and 
 Foochow, and later at Canton. The first English 
 ships arrived at Canton in 1635 '■> m I ^77 they traded 
 also at Amoy, but were unable to obtain a permanent 
 footing at Canton until 1684, owing to the jealousy 
 and bribery of the Portuguese at Macao. The French, 
 Americans and other nations did not enter the China 
 field fully until the eighteenth century. During the 
 1 Ashley, i., p. ill. 
 
THE GILD MERCHANT 59 
 
 seventeenth century the small trade done was carried 
 on at many points, but it tended to gravitate to 
 Canton, partly because of the keen business instinct 
 of both officials and merchants at that city, and 
 partly because it was found that elsewhere the officials 
 aimed at securing as many golden eggs as they could 
 in the shortest possible time ; and from the first years 
 of the eighteenth century Canton was a self-consti- 
 tuted staple. With the curious inversion of Western 
 practice, so often seen in the East, it was not the 
 government which threatened to change the staple, 
 but the foreign traders, whenever they found the 
 extortion at Canton assuming what might be called 
 unreasonable proportions, even for those longitudes. 
 Finally in 1757 an Imperial decree prohibited foreign 
 trade elsewhere than at Canton, and that city re- 
 mained the staple until the treaty of Nanking in 1842 
 opened four other staples. 1 
 
 In considering the relations between the Co-hong 
 and the Europeans in the factories, it will be con- 
 venient to limit our purview to the English factory, 
 since its affairs were under complete control, viz., 
 that of the East India Company, since its trade was 
 greater in volume than all the others together, and 
 since it was in the forefront of the battle in the con- 
 stant disputes on questions of trade, law and govern- 
 ment. Before entering upon the Canton scene, we 
 must first, however, see what were the conditions 
 governing the merchant gild and the Steelyard in 
 England during the Middle Ages. 
 
 The gild merchant, or hanse, was a society formed 
 primarily for the purpose of obtaining and maintain- 
 ing the privilege of carrying on trade — a privilege 
 
 ; The Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire," chap. ix. 
 
 1 « 
 
60 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 which implied the possession of a monopoly of trade 
 in each town by the gild brethren. 1 It existed in 
 every town in England — except London and the 
 Cinque Ports — down to those that were not much 
 more than villages ; and a noted lawyer of the twelfth 
 century held that the commune, i.e. the body of 
 citizens with rights of municipal self-government, 
 was identical with the gild merchant. 2 London seems 
 to have had none, but its municipality, established 
 at an early date, possessed all the rights which would 
 have been conferred by a grant of gild merchant. 3 
 The government of the gild was in the hands of an 
 alderman and two or four wardens or echevins, 
 generally assisted by an inner council of twelve or 
 twenty-four. The membership included all traders 
 in the town, and did not exclude craftsmen as such, 
 and their rights could be handed down to sons, and 
 even to the husbands and sons of daughters ; and 
 merchants from other towns were also admitted to 
 membership. The regulations made by the gilds to 
 control trade illustrate the spirit of the time, that, 
 while members could push their own interests, they 
 still must act in the common interest, and that all 
 were bound to submit to regulations for the common 
 good, and to come to the assistance of their fellow- 
 members ; for example, if a gildsman of Southampton 
 were put into prison in any part of England, certain 
 of the gild officers were bound to go at the cost of 
 the gild to procure his deliverance ; and, by the rules 
 of many of the gilds, any member present could 
 demand a share in a bargain. The jurisdiction of 
 the gild had for one of its chief purposes the main- 
 tenance of the gild privileges. There are frequent 
 1 Ashley, i., p. 71. i Ibid., p. 72. 3 Unwin, p. 60. 
 
THE GILD MERCHANT 61 
 
 ordinances against acting as agents for the sale of 
 goods belonging to non-members, or instructing 
 strangers in the secrets of local trade ; but, on the 
 other hand, it was held to be of the greatest import- 
 ance to maintain fair dealing and a high standard 
 of quality. 1 
 
 The foreign trade of England, during the time 
 of the supremacy of the gild merchant, was largely 
 in the hands of foreign traders, 2 and especially of 
 Italians, who were the bankers and most unscrupulous 
 usurers of the time ; and frequently at the larger 
 ports the actual owner, or farmer, of the king's custom 
 was an Italian or a provost of Aquitaine, who worked 
 hand in glove with the importers. 3 The import 
 trade was not carried on by isolated individuals, but 
 the merchants from a particular town clung together 
 and sought privileges to be enjoyed in common. In 
 those days " the merchants of, let us say, Amiens 
 formed part of that body of burghers that governed 
 Amiens ; they were regarded as representing the 
 interests of Amiens ; their treatment depended on 
 particular treaties with or conditions granted to 
 Amiens ; and, in any difficulty, it was to the magis- 
 trates [or merchant gild] of Amiens that they would 
 look for assistance," 4 as we have seen illustrated in 
 the case of the men of Southampton. In the English 
 port the foreigners found themselves face to face with 
 a body organised in the same way as that from which 
 they were delegates, and for the same object — that 
 of reserving as large a proportion of profit as should 
 be possible. For this purpose many restrictions were 
 imposed on the foreigner in the interest of the 
 
 1 Ashley, i., pp. 73-76. 2 Ibid., p. 103. 
 
 3 Atton and Holland, p. 12. * Ashley, i., p. 103. 
 
62 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 burgesses of the town, without whose consent, as many 
 of the charters expressly stated, no one who was not 
 a burgher could carry on trade within the town. 1 
 The restrictions imposed on non-burgesses varied 
 considerably, but we may distinguish several fixed 
 points : — 
 
 i°. Strangers were subject to tolls from which 
 burgesses were partially or wholly exempt. 
 
 2°. Strangers were not permitted to buy from or 
 sell to other strangers, except under rigid conditions. 
 
 3°. Strangers were not permitted to sell goods by 
 retail, nor to go inland with their wares. 
 
 4°. Strangers were compelled to " go to host," 
 i.e. to abide in the house of a burgess assigned to 
 him as his " host " by the gild authorities or the town 
 magistrates ; the purpose of this was that every 
 transaction of aliens should be subject to the closest 
 scrutiny in the interest of the natives. On the 
 continent of Europe this restriction was rigidly en- 
 forced, but there was much laxity in England, greatly 
 to the discontent of the burgesses of English towns. 
 
 5°. The residence of foreign merchants in England 
 was limited to forty days. 2 
 
 The fourteenth century was a period of alternate 
 victory and defeat in the battle between the foreign 
 merchants and the English traders. On the one side 
 was the sturdily independent burgess demanding the 
 enforcement of what he held to be his just rights. 
 On the other were the barons, whose interest was in 
 unrestricted trade, and the king guided by his fiscal 
 interest, to wit, the increase of the customs and the 
 easier negotiation of loans from the foreign merchants, 
 
 1 Ashley, ii., p. 12. 2 Ibid., pp. 13-16. 
 
THE GILD MERCHANT 63 
 
 who were the only bankers of the time. The privi- 
 leges of London were in the hands of the king, 
 Edward I., from 1285 to 1298, and in these fourteen 
 years the restrictions against foreigners were generally 
 relaxed. The reins were then tightened ; but in 1303 
 the king issued the Carta Mercatoria, in which, in 
 return for the payment of additional customs, he 
 abolished all the previous limitations as to the time 
 and place of residence, and as to the persons to whom 
 goods might be sold, and permitted to foreigners the 
 retail trade in spiceries and merceries ; an interesting 
 approach to the extraterritoriality enjoyed by foreigners 
 in China since 1843, is found in the provision that in 
 all suits between natives and aliens, one-half of the jury 
 should consist of merchants, fellow-townsmen of the 
 foreigner. From 131 1 the burgesses were able to 
 re-impose the old restrictions, but they were again 
 relaxed in 1322. After another period of strictness, 
 they were again relaxed by Edward III. in 1335, 
 again in 1343, and again more completely in 135 1. 
 In 1377 * Richard II. granted a charter to London, 
 under which all the old restrictions were imposed, 
 without exception. In 1381 the foreigners' privileges 
 were restored and the London retailers' monopoly 
 was cancelled ; then ensued the Great Revolt of Wat 
 Tyler. In 1384 the restrictions were again imposed ; 
 and in 1393 came the final settlement, enduring to 
 the end of the Middle Ages, and, indeed, far into 
 modern times, forbidding aliens to deal with one 
 another or to engage in retail trade. 2 
 
 1 It was at this time that Geoffrey Chaucer was Collector of 
 Customs for the port of London, being controller of the custom and 
 subsidy of wool, fells and hides, from 1374 to 1386, and controller of 
 the petty, or alien's, custom from 138210 1386. 
 
 2 Ashley, i., pp. 106-108 ; ii., pp. 13-19 ; Unwin, pp. 137-151. 
 
64 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 In Canton we find a close parallel to what, as we 
 have seen, was the position of the English gild mer- 
 chant, and of the oligarchic civic administration which 
 succeeded to its duties and privileges ; and to the 
 restrictions imposed on the alien trader. The differ- 
 ences are mainly such as spring from the different 
 social and political conditions. In Canton the gild 
 was the creation, ad hoc, of the government, working 
 as one man and with all the forces of the government 
 behind it, and was not composed of a numerous body 
 of freemen striving for the interests of the town and 
 of themselves ; the fiscal interest of the emperor and 
 the members of the administration, at Peking and at 
 Canton, was not facility in negotiating loans, or even 
 the increase of the customs, but it was that the foreign 
 trade should be milked, and that the takings from it 
 should be both large and not subject to audit ; and 
 the foreign merchants in the factories had the status 
 of a " Steelyard " thrust on them, and, filled with a high 
 appreciation of the might of the Chinese empire, they 
 had no thought, until the very end, of resisting the 
 restrictions which were imposed upon them. The 
 restrictions took another form, but their nature was 
 the same, and they were more effective in accom- 
 plishing their object. 
 
 By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the 
 foreign trade in China had gravitated to Canton. 
 There it was subjected to many restrictions and 
 many exactions, but there was no consistent regula- 
 tion, and loopholes were provided in plenty by the 
 possibility of making private bargains ; in fact, it was 
 the common practice for ships to stop outside the 
 Bogue, the entrance to the Canton River, until the 
 supercargo had gone to Canton and settled by nego- 
 
THE GILD MERCHANT 65 
 
 tiation the amount of fees which his ship must pay. 
 The first step in regulation was taken in 1702, when 
 one merchant of Canton was appointed to be the 
 sole broker through whom all foreigners must buy 
 their teas and silks, and must sell the few foreign pro- 
 ducts for which a market then existed. This appoint- 
 ment of the " emperor's merchant " was objection- 
 able to the foreign traders, because he could not 
 supply them readily with a cargo ; to the other 
 merchants of Canton, who were shut out from a 
 profitable trade ; and to the officials, both territorial 
 and fiscal, because he was the direct nominee of the 
 emperor, and, while exacting, as a matter of course, 
 all the trade would stand, reported his collection only 
 according to the moderate official tariff of the empire. 
 Owing to this opposition, the emperor's merchant 
 agreed to allow other merchants to share in the trade 
 on payment to him of 5000 taels (£1667) for each 
 ship, but otherwise no concession was made to the 
 foreign traders. From certain articles which were 
 agreed to in 1715 between the supercargoes of the 
 East India Company and the Hoppo (the Controller 
 of Customs for the port and province of Canton), 
 but which produced no lasting effect, we may learn 
 what were some of the grievances from which they 
 already suffered, and which they hoped to remedy. 
 They included — unrestricted trade with all ; liberty 
 to engage and dismiss what Chinese servants they 
 wished, while their English servants were to be left 
 to the supercargoes to deal with ; liberty to buy 
 provisions and necessaries for their factory and ships ; 
 liberty to re-export unsold goods free of duty ; that 
 the Hoppo should " protect them from all insults 
 and impositions of the common people and mandarins, 
 
 E 
 
66 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 who were annually laying new duties and exactions 
 which they were forbidden to allow of ; " that the 4 
 per cent, be taken off, and that every claim or demand 
 the Hoppo had should be demanded and determined 
 the same time with the measurement of the ship. 1 
 These were, one and all, grievances of which a be- 
 ginning had been made, and from which foreign 
 traders continued to suffer for over a century to come. 
 
 The last article given above requires some ex- 
 planation. The 4 per cent, charge (on the value of 
 sales and purchases) dated from 1702 ; one of the 
 four was a gratuity imposed for the benefit of the 
 intermediaries (interpreters and others), and the 
 other three were for the Hoppo's staff. The " claims 
 and demands " were indeterminate and importunate. 
 The first was the measurement charge, for which, on 
 the Company's ship Defence, in 1689, the sum of 
 2484 taels (^830) was demanded, but 1500 taels (^500) 
 accepted ; the ship measured " 94 coveds " (no feet) 
 from before the mizzen-mast to abaft the foremast, 
 and " 23-J coveds " (27-i feet) in breadth, and the 
 limitation to the measurement for length is an illus- 
 tration of the delightful system of " give and take " 
 which prevails in all cases of unregulated exaction. 
 Ultimately the extra-legal charge, as a consideration 
 for consenting to measure, came to be a customary 
 sum of 1950 taels (^650) over and above the measure- 
 ment fees proper. Other charges also grew up and 
 became stereotyped, and with them we shall have to 
 deal later ; but monopoly and exaction had begun, 
 though, as yet, they were not fully regulated. Regu- 
 lation was, however, soon to come. 
 
 In 1720 the merchants of Canton resolved to 
 
 1 Auber, p. 153. 
 
 
THE GILD MERCHANT 67 
 
 form themselves into one body, or Co-hong. This 
 " combination which the Chinese were forming to 
 set their own prices on the goods to be sold Europeans, 
 thereby to have their proportions of the real profit 
 on the said goods, whoever appeared to be the seller," x 
 was essentially, except that it was limited to a few 
 among the many merchants of Canton, an embodi- 
 ment of the gild merchant ; it purported to be an 
 organisation of the merchants themselves, but, from 
 the evidence of the strong grasp which the officials 
 had on the foreign trade, it is beyond doubt that the 
 company was formed with, at least, the support of 
 the agents of government. 
 
 In 1727, as a protest against the continuous in- 
 crease in the exactions at Canton, the supercargoes 
 collectively threatened to transfer their trade to Amoy, 
 but the Hoppo at once acceded to their demands. 
 In 1728, in addition to the usual impositions, none of 
 which had, of course, been actually withdrawn, an 
 additional duty of 10 per cent, was imposed on all 
 goods sold by the merchants, the charge naturally 
 following the goods and falling ultimately on the 
 foreign traders ; the supercargoes appealed for redress, 
 but without result, first to the Viceroy, 2 and then to 
 the government at Peking. In 1732 the supercargoes 
 ordered all the ships to remain outside the Bogue, 
 until they should receive an assurance that their 
 privileges would be respected ; their demand was 
 acceded to. In 1734 they attempted to obtain 
 redress for their complaint on the quality of silks 
 
 1 Letter of Court of Directors of East India Company to their 
 supercargoes. In Auber, p. 156. 
 
 2 The Viceroy, throughout Auber's narrative of events, is 
 regularly referred to as the Isontock. This can only stand for 
 Tsongtuk, the Cantonese form of Tsung-tu, Governor-General or 
 Viceroy. 
 
68 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 and on irregular impositions, also " as to the 1950 
 taels " ; 1 and again threatened to transfer their trade 
 to Amoy. In 1736, by an act of grace on the accession 
 of Kienlung, the 10 per cent, surtax was abolished, 
 in consideration of which " considerable presents 
 were made to the Isontock." In 1737 " renewed 
 but ineffectual efforts were made to obtain a re- 
 mission of the 1950 taels." 2 
 
 The exactions continued to increase, and in 1747, 
 and again in 1752, special efforts were made to obtain 
 the remission of " the 1950 taels " and other charges 
 enforced contrary to the Imperial edict of 1736 ; and 
 in 1754 steps were taken to open trade with Ningpo. 
 It was in 1754 that orders were given that every vessel, 
 on arriving, should be " secured " by two members 
 of the Co-hong, before negotiations would be begun 
 for settling the amount of measurement fee, gratuity, 
 brokers' and interpreters' fees, customs duties, lighter- 
 age charges, ship chandlers' charges, pilotage, &c. &c. 3 
 This was a distinct step ahead in the strictness of 
 control over foreign trade ; before this date the 
 Co-hong had a monopoly of buying the goods brought 
 by a ship, and of providing her with tea, silk and 
 other products for a lading outwards ; but now every 
 operation connected with a foreign ship was to be 
 in their hands. 
 
 In 1757 an Imperial edict made Canton the sole 
 staple for foreign trade, and prohibited all traffic 
 outside that port. After an attempt at protest made 
 by sending their interpreter, Mr. Flint, to negotiate 
 at Amoy and Ningpo for trading facilities, 4 the 
 
 1 Auber, p. 162. 2 Ibid., p. 163. 
 
 3 Auber, p. 168; Eitel, p. 6; GutzlafF, ii., p. 90. 
 * Auber, p. 170 ; Eitel, p. 6; Davis, i., p. 57 ; Williams, ii., p. 448. 
 
THE GILD MERCHANT 69 
 
 East India Company had to acknowledge defeat, and 
 the fruits of victory were reaped by the officials and 
 merchants of Canton, in the formal chartering of 
 the Co-hong in 1760. Protests continued to be made, 
 however, and in 1760 the Court of Directors of the 
 East India Company sent to Canton a special repre- 
 sentative, who formulated his demands for redress on 
 the following points : — 
 
 i°. The 1950 taels. 
 
 2°. The 6 per cent, on imports and the 2 per cent, 
 on all silver paid the Hoppo. 
 
 3 . To be allowed to pay their own duties, and not 
 through the merchants who are styled securities, whom 
 they charged with applying it to their own purposes. 
 
 4 . Direct access to the Hoppo, and direct access 
 for appeals to the Viceroy. 1 
 
 Fifty years later the foreign traders would have 
 been glad to have so short a list of grievances. 
 
 In 1 77 1 the Co-hong was dissolved by order of 
 the Viceroy. " It cost Puankhequa 100,000 taels 
 GC33>333) which the [East India] Company repaid 
 him." 2 The reason assigned was that many of the 
 firms composing the Co-hong were bankrupt and in 
 arrears with the contributions due to the officials. 3 
 
 In 1782 many Cantonese merchants were found to 
 be heavily in debt to foreign traders, especially to 
 natives of India, who had lent large sums to Chinese, 
 attracted by the high rates of interest ruling in China. 4 
 
 1 Auber, p. 174 ; Gutzlaff, ii., p. 105. 
 
 2 Auber, p. 178. 3 Eitel, p. 8. 
 
 * "After Manho "(banished to Hi for bankruptcy) " left Canton, I 
 saw in the hands of one of the foreign contributors "(to a compassion- 
 ate fund for his benefit) "his promissory note for $60,000 bearing 
 interest at 5 per cent, per month. This was not exorbitant, under the 
 circumstances in which it was given. The current rate of interest, 
 
yo THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 On representations being made, an Imperial edict was 
 issued, ordering that the debts should be forthwith 
 liquidated by the general body of merchants, and 
 prohibiting the incurring of such debts in future ; 
 and, as a guarantee for the future, the body of, at 
 first " The Twelve," subsequently " The Thirteen 
 Merchants," was chartered, to assume sole control of 
 foreign trade, to ensure due obedience to the orders 
 of the government, and to serve as the sole inter- 
 mediary for communications between the govern- 
 ment and the foreign traders. 1 This was, to all 
 intents and purposes, the old Co-hong ; but, instead 
 of the old joint and several responsibility for all events 
 and liabilities, they were given the administration of 
 a Consoo (Kung-so, " gild ") fund, provided by direct 
 contribution from the foreign trade, and available to 
 meet any liability for debts, fines, impositions, &c. 
 The gild merchant was now fully established. 
 
 In this brief historical resume we have seen a mer- 
 chant gild in the making, under the mediaeval con- 
 ditions from which, notwithstanding her privileged 
 East India Company, England had already emerged. 
 We have now to study such a gild in the working, 
 under conditions of almost unchecked authority. 
 
 This gild, the Co-hong, operated in close touch 
 
 with the agents of government, receiving their full 
 
 support on the one hand, and on the other serving 
 
 as the channel through which was transmitted the 
 
 stream of wealth in which the officials expected to 
 
 share largely ; and, while we need not enter upon the 
 
 questions of jurisdiction or the attitude of lofty supe- 
 
 with the best security, was i per cent, per month on running account, 
 while 2 to 3 per cent, per month on temporary loans was common." 
 Hunter, p. 39. 
 
 1 Auber, p. 182 ; Eitel, p. 8. 
 
THE GILD MERCHANT 71 
 
 riority assumed by the Chinese empire, it will be well 
 to describe briefly the functions of some of the officials 
 who could exercise an influence on foreign trade. 
 
 The Hoppo x (in Chinese Kwan-pu), Controller of 
 Customs for the port and province of Canton, received 
 a direct Imperial appointment, and was quite inde- 
 pendent of the Viceroy and other territorial officials, 
 except in so far as he might require the arm of the 
 law to help in the exercise of his functions within their 
 jurisdiction. His functions were threefold : he had 
 to collect the moderate sum at which his office was 
 assessed for customs duty, and to maintain the 
 numerous staff by which it was collected ; he had to 
 collect further and much larger sums with which to 
 gratify the court and ministers at Peking, and to 
 placate the high officials in whose jurisdiction his 
 work lay ; and he had to collect still further sums with 
 which to reimburse himself the amount his appoint- 
 ment had cost, to buy a peaceful retirement, and to 
 leave himself the fortune for the acquirement of which 
 he had taken office. Adherence to a fixed tariff and 
 exact report of his collection would have defeated 
 the most important of these objects, in fact those 
 which alone had any real importance in the eyes of 
 the Chinese official world ; and the Co-hong, in its 
 full development, was the instrument by which he 
 tapped the foreign trade to an extent, not fully 
 realisable, but unparalleled since the palmy days of 
 the Roman Empire. 
 
 The Viceroy (Tsung-tu or Chih-tai) of the two 
 provinces of Kwangtung and Kwangsi had his official 
 residence in those days at Shiuhing, some fifty miles 
 
 1 Hoppo from Hoi-pu, truncated form in Cantonese of Yueh-hai- 
 kwan-pu, Controller of the Maritime Customs of Kwangtung. 
 
72 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 up-river from Canton, but was often at Canton at 
 critical times. He was supreme in civil matters 
 within his jurisdiction, except for the independent 
 jurisdiction of the Hoppo, and was ultimately respon- 
 sible for maintaining law and order. After a century 
 of experience it was found that the easiest way of 
 keeping the foreign traders in a proper state of respect 
 for the law, as laid down by the officials, and for their 
 orders, was through the Co-hong, and that body was 
 now the inevitable buffer in all matters of dispute. 
 
 The Governor (Futai, styled Foo-yuan in the older 
 books) had jurisdiction over the province of Kwang- 
 tung. During an interregnum, or in the absence of 
 the Viceroy, he appears as his substitute. 
 
 Without enumerating the duties of the interme- 
 diate officials, Provincial Treasurer, Provincial Judge, 
 Prefect (Kwangchow-fu) and others, at the foot of 
 the scale we have the Hien, who is the primary agent 
 of the government in collecting all taxes except customs 
 and gabelles, is at once police superintendent and 
 magistrate, and combines many other functions. We 
 are concerned with three : two at Canton, the Namhoi 
 and Punyii (the foreign trade at Canton and Whampoa 
 lying within the jurisdiction of the latter), and the 
 Heungshan Hien (in whose jurisdiction lay Macao, 
 which, it must always be remembered, was under the 
 fiscal control of the Chinese government). 1 
 
 Among the many regulations made and added 
 to from time to time, the following are the most 
 important : — 2 
 
 i°. Ships of war must remain outside the river, 
 and must not enter the Bogue. 
 
 1 Ljungstedt, p. io ; Martin, i., p. 371 ; ii., p. 19. 
 
 2 Auber, p. 344 ; Hunter, p. 28. 
 
THE GILD MERCHANT 73 
 
 This rule was never relaxed. When war-ships 
 arrived measurement fees were demanded, in- 
 variably in the eighteenth century, occasionally 
 even in the nineteenth, and were usually re- 
 jected, but sometimes complied with. 
 
 2°. Women must not be brought to the factories ; 
 nor could guns, spears, or other arms. 
 
 This rule was rigorously enforced. As late as 1831 
 the Chinese threatened to stop the trade in 
 order to enforce the immediate departure of 
 three ladies who had come from Macao to 
 visit the English factory. 
 
 3 . Hong merchants must not be in debt to 
 foreigners. 
 
 Owing to the high interest, there was temptation 
 on both sides for foreigners to lend money to 
 Chinese; in 1831 it was ordered that these 
 debts be liquidated within three months ; this 
 was done, but by the treaty of Nanking in 1842, 
 the amount of such debts due eight years later, 
 in 1839, was ta -ken as being $3,000,000 
 (£650,000). 
 
 4 . Foreign traders must not engage Chinese 
 servants. 
 
 This was regularly relaxed, but was always a 
 weapon to be used in terror em. 
 
 5 . Foreigners must not use sedan chairs. 
 
 Walking was the only method of progression 
 suitable for foreigners, and not too much of 
 that, since they were forbidden to leave the 
 factories except under escort. 
 
 6°. Foreigners must not row for pleasure on the 
 river. Three days in the month (on the 8th, 18th, 
 and 28th) they might take the air, in small parties 
 
74 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 under the escort of an interpreter, who was held 
 responsible for all their misdeeds. 
 This requires no comment. 
 
 7°. Foreigners must not present petitions ; if 
 they have anything to represent, it must be done 
 through the Hong merchants. 
 
 This required them to complain of any irregularity 
 through the agent committing the irregu- 
 larity, with no appeal, and from this rule there 
 was no relaxation. 
 8°. " In the Hong merchants' factories where 
 foreigners live, let them be under the restraint and 
 control of the Hong merchants. The purchase of 
 goods by them must pass through the hands of a 
 Hong merchant ; this was originally designed to 
 guard against traitorous natives misleading them and 
 teaching them. Hereafter the foreign merchants 
 dwelling in the Hong merchants' factories must not 
 be allowed to presume of their own accord to go 
 out and in, lest they should trade and carry on clan- 
 destine transactions with traitorous natives." 
 
 Foreigners must " go to host " ; there was no 
 
 necessity to forbid their trading with each 
 
 other, but they must not trade, wholesale or 
 
 retail, with, practically, any but their host. 
 
 9°. Foreigners must not remain at Canton out 
 
 of season, but, their goods sold and their ships laden, 
 
 must return home or go to Macao. 
 
 This corresponded with the forty days' limit in 
 England. For a consideration paid to the 
 proper persons, permission could be obtained, 
 under various pretexts, for two or three to 
 remain behind in each factory after the general 
 exodus. Though the annual departure was 
 
THE GILD MERCHANT 75 
 
 compulsory, it, as well as the arrival, had to be 
 paid for, the usual charge on departure being 
 300 taels (£100). 
 
 These were the more important of the regulations 
 restricting the action of the foreign traders. Under 
 them, in so far as they were merchants, and not super- 
 cargoes coming in their ship, they paid for and ob- 
 tained a permit to proceed from Macao to Canton in 
 advance of the arrival of their ships ; these must come 
 before the end of the south-west monsoon (before 
 the end of October), which would bring them safely 
 and speedily the length of the China Sea from the 
 Straits of Sunda or the Straits of Malacca to Canton. 
 On their arrival in Canton, their first business was to 
 select and arrange with their security merchant, who 
 must be one of " The Thirteen Firms," and who was 
 personally responsible for every act of the foreign 
 traders, or their ships, or their crews. To enable him 
 to accept that responsibility, the foreign traders were, 
 without possibility of protest, placed in his hands. 
 Foreigners must sell to him alone the goods brought 
 in their ships ; they were not under compulsion to 
 sell — they were free to send the goods back in the 
 ship — but they must sell to no one else. They must 
 also buy from him the tea and silk for lading their 
 ships outwards ; here again they were under no com- 
 pulsion — they need not load a cargo — but they must 
 buy from no one else. They might go, three days a 
 month, a-pleasuring to the flower gardens, but they 
 might not walk freely in the street a hundred yards 
 from the factories, to see what articles were in demand 
 and at what prices they were sold ; nor had they any 
 means of ascertaining what were the just prices for 
 
76 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 the teas and silks they bought, since there was no 
 competition. Their ships laden and away while the 
 north-east monsoon still had strength to waft them 
 down the China Sea, the traders must then pay for 
 and obtain a permit authorising them to return to 
 Macao, there to await the return of the next season. 
 
 The regulations affecting the traders' business — 
 their ships and their lading — were as minute. 1 On 
 the arrival of a ship at Macao, the first duty of her 
 master or supercargo was to take a licensed pilot from 
 the office of the Tso-tang, the deputy of the Heung- 
 shan Hien stationed at Macao, to control and tax 
 foreign trade at that port. Here too at first, but later 
 at Whampoa, in the jurisdiction of the Punyu Hien, 
 he engaged a ship's comprador (ship chandler), who 
 had the sole privilege of supplying the ship with pro- 
 visions and all other necessaries. Arrived at the 
 Bogue, the ship must then be measured and obtain a 
 permit to enter the river and proceed to Whampoa. 
 An authentic account 2 of the fees paid officially for 
 one ship of small size (420 tons) in 1830, shows the 
 extreme elasticity of the tariff, over and above the 
 gratifications paid to numerous subordinates to facili- 
 tate the smooth running of the machinery : — 
 
 Taels. 
 
 Tonnage dues calculated according to 
 
 measurement of length and breadth . 842.285 
 
 Loss in converting into bullion . . 75-8o6 
 
 Shroffage i5- l6x 
 
 Official gratuity 810.691 
 
 Carry forward . . 1,743.943 
 
 1 Hunter, passim. " The Trade and Administration of the Chinese 
 Empire," chap. ix. 
 
 2 Hunter, p. 100. See also Gutzlaff, ii., pp. 89-91. 
 
THE GILD MERCHANT jy 
 
 Brought forward . . 1,743.943 
 
 Hoppo's "fee for opening the barrier" . 480.420 
 Transport to Peking and weighing in 
 
 government scales .... 150.145 
 
 To the Superintendent of the Treasury . 116.424 
 
 Add i t \j per cent, converting into bullion 1.280 
 Difference in weights between Canton 
 
 and Peking, 7 per cent. . . . 174.455 
 
 Total . . 2,666.667 Taels. 
 
 These figures are already reduced by one-fifth, as 
 for a " second-class " ship, but the total was equivalent 
 to £900. In 1830, it may be noted, " the 1950 taels " 
 exacted as a gratuity from the large ships of the East 
 India Company was reduced to 1600 taels, consequent 
 upon a resolution to send all the Company's ships 
 away to Manila. 1 
 
 During her stay of, usually, three months at 
 Whampoa, the ship continued to give a steady stream 
 of profit to the privileged ship's comprador and the 
 privileged bumboatmen, and to the minor officials 
 from daily and monthly fees, from payments to sub- 
 ordinates, and from numerous and uncertain gratuities 
 to facilitate her working and expedite her departure. 
 
 The agent at Canton took the ship's manifest, 
 giving full particulars of her lading, and handed it 
 to his security merchant, and had no further concern 
 with her inward cargo. As the security merchant 
 provided office, storage and lodging accommodation, 
 found servants for the foreigner and guaranteed them, 
 and conveyed the imports from ship to warehouse in 
 privileged (monopoly) lighters, so too he bought the 
 imports at a price which he was able, or willing, to 
 give, counting on selling them again at a price to 
 
 1 Auber, p. 324 ; Gutzlaff, ii., p. 91. 
 
78 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 allow a margin sufficient to cover his profit and 
 expenses, all duties and charges claimed by the govern- 
 ment, and the heavy exactions demanded by the 
 officials. The East India Company stated that their 
 net loss on British products shipped from England 
 to Canton had been _£i,668,io3 in twenty-three 
 years, 1 due, as the Company declared, to " forcing the 
 trade beyond the demand," but as readily explainable 
 by the absolute power given to the members of the 
 gild merchant of Canton to fix prices themselves, with 
 no check from free competition ; even had the mono- 
 polists been willing to foster trade by giving better 
 prices, they were not free agents in the matter, since 
 they were under compulsion to provide a large margin 
 between their buying and selling rates. 
 
 The imports having been thus disposed of, the 
 foreign traders' next concern was, with the proceeds 
 and with the specie which every ship then had to 
 bring, to buy a lading outwards for their ships. Ship- 
 ments of silk were, by law, limited to 167 cwt. for 
 any one ship, and the demand for miscellaneous pro- 
 ducts was restricted ; and outward cargoes consisted 
 mainly of tea. This, too, as well as other exports, 
 could be bought only from the trader's own security 
 merchant. The foreign traders had, however, an 
 option by custom — they could, at the close of a season, 
 settle both quantity and price for the following 
 season, or they could settle the quantity only, leaving 
 the price to be determined by the rates ruling at the 
 opening of the next season ; but, whether they settled 
 the price now or next year, it was with their security 
 merchant that they had to settle it. In exports, also, 
 
 1 Evidence before Lords' Committee, 1820, quoted in Crawfuid, 
 p. 24. 
 
THE GILD MERCHANT 79 
 
 the Co-hong was under compulsion to provide a large 
 margin between their buying and selling rates. More- 
 over the whole trade of any one ship was in the hands 
 of one middleman, practically reducing it to a trade 
 by barter, apart from the specie introduced; and if, 
 by a refusal to buy, a stand were made for lower prices 
 for tea, it was always open to the security merchant 
 to adjust the equilibrium by giving lower prices for 
 imports. As Burke declared, 1 comparing the monopoly 
 of the Co-hong to the monopoly of the East India 
 Company : " As the Chinese monopoly is at home, 
 and supported by the country magistrates, it is plain 
 it is the Chinese company, not the English, which 
 must prescribe the terms." 
 
 The Chinese monopolists were at home, and they 
 were supported by their officials, but for this support 
 they had to pay ; that was, in fact, the reason for their 
 existence. The English king, in earlier days, found it 
 to his advantage to foster foreign trade, and to break 
 down the barriers which circumscribed the foreign 
 traders and restricted their liberty of trade ; it was 
 from the foreign traders he could obtain loans and 
 increased revenue from customary dues. The Chinese 
 emperor wanted no loans — not for a century or two 
 to come — and the gain to the nsc from customs dues 
 was a bagatelle compared with the gains to individuals 
 from levies outside all tariffs ; and these gains, by the 
 revised system dating, in its final shape, from 1782, 
 came through the agency of the Co-hong. In them 
 all at Canton had a share — Hoppo, Viceroy, Governor, 
 and so on, down to Hien — with the secretaries, 
 accountants, messengers, boatmen, servants, door- 
 
 1 Ninth Report of Select Committee of House of Commons, 25th 
 June 1783, quoted in Crawfurd, p. 36. 
 
80 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 keepers, &c. &c, of each one. Of them all the 
 Hoppo was chief, since he was master of the foreign 
 trade, and, in those days of slow communication, 
 foreign traders acted on the assumption that they 
 must conform to the laws, however enacted and how- 
 ever enforced, of the countries to which their trade 
 called them. As we have seen, the Hoppo had to 
 extract his millions from the trade ; and, as his word 
 was law, he had no difficulty in doing it. 
 
 The Co-hong system worked with little friction. 
 The foreign traders enjoyed the practical monopoly 
 assured to them by their distance from the home 
 market and the difficulty of communication ; they 
 paid nothing directly in the way of duties or charges, 
 except their contributions to the " Consoo " guarantee 
 fund, and had nothing of the extortion thrust under 
 their eyes ; and the discomforts of their life, shut up 
 in rented quarters in the factories, were as nothing 
 to the prospect of accumulating a competency. The 
 members of the merchant gild, the Co-hong, were 
 bled, one way and another, to the tune of millions, but 
 could recoup themselves many times over ; and the 
 Chinese officials were quite contented. The best 
 commentary on the commercial aspect of the system 
 is the admitted fact that there grew up side by side, 
 during a century of joint working, a body of Chinese 
 and of foreign merchants, than whom there has never, 
 at any time, or at any place, been a more honourable ; 
 with never a written contract, with many an occasion 
 of help in time of difficulty, and with much sympathy 
 and friendliness from the one to the other. And yet, 
 all this was paid for by the foreign traders. That the 
 Co-hong system allowed the foreigner not only to 
 make a living but to accumulate a modest fortune, 
 
THE GILD MERCHANT 81 
 
 that a member of the Co-hong should, when occasion 
 called for it, wipe out the debt of a foreign merchant 
 who had fallen into difficulties, 1 says much for the 
 generosity and the business capacity and foresight of 
 the Chinese merchants, but it emphasises also the fact 
 that there must have been a wide margin of profit to 
 allow of such liberality. For the Co-hong was the 
 " milker " of the foreign trade, milking it all it could 
 stand, and paying heavily for the privilege. As much 
 as 200,000 taels (£66,667) must be paid for a seat in the 
 gild ; 2 contributions of 50,000 or 100,000 taels must be 
 made at frequent intervals for a Yellow River flood or 
 for purchase of official rank for a son ; when the Chinese 
 debts to foreign traders were paid off in 1831 one 
 member contributed $1,100,000 (£245,000) and others 
 in proportion ; and to the ransom of $6,000,000 for 
 the city of Canton in 1841 the same member con- 
 tributed $1,000,000 (£225,000). 3 Notwithstanding 
 these heavy claims, this member, Howqua, himself 
 stated in 1834, nine years before his death, that he 
 valued his estate at $26,000,000 (nearly £6,000,000), 
 a great fortune for those days, probably the largest 
 mercantile fortune in the world ; and this was the 
 surplus, after meeting the demands of numerous 
 " blind mouths " — officials who made the law, and 
 interpreted the law so made. 
 
 In the first third of the nineteenth century, the 
 foreign trade of Canton had gravitated to the English 
 race. The trade of the Portuguese, the Dutch, the 
 French, the Spanish, and others, had been reduced 
 to insignificant proportions ; 4 and it may be said 
 
 1 Hunter, pp. 42-44, 107 ; Nye, p. 40. 
 
 '-' Hunter, p. 36. 3 Ibid., pp. 45, 47 
 
 4 Auber, p. 338 ; Hunter, p. 22. 
 
 F 
 
82 
 
 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 generally that two-thirds of the entire trade was in 
 the hands of the English, and one-fourth in those of 
 the Americans. In the season 1836-37, for example, 
 the trade was distributed as follows : — x 
 
 British : Number of ships, 171. 
 
 Value of imports (including 27,746 chests 
 
 of opium, excluding treasure) . . £34,435,622 
 
 Value of exports (excluding treasure) . 25,339,284 
 
 American : Number of ships, 96. 
 
 Value of imports (including 451 chests of 
 
 opium, excluding treasure) . . . $3,214,726 
 
 Value of exports (no treasure) . . . 9,527,139 
 
 French : Value of imports (including 100 chests of 
 
 opium) .$116,456 
 
 Value of exports 138,547 
 
 Dutch : Value of imports (including 10 chests of 
 
 opium) ....... 8526,032 
 
 Value of exports ...... 1,070,290 
 
 In that same season the foreign residents in the 
 factories at Canton were divided among the various 
 nationalities as follows : — 2 
 
 
 Firms. 
 
 Men. 
 
 British 
 
 3* 
 
 162 
 
 Parsee .... 
 
 1 1 
 
 62 
 
 American .... 
 
 9 
 
 44 
 
 Portuguese 3 
 
 1 
 
 28 
 
 German . 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 Dutch .... 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 Swedish .... 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 Danish .... 
 
 — 
 
 1 
 
 French .... 
 
 — 
 
 1 
 
 
 55 
 
 3°7 
 
 1 Chinese Repository, Oct., 1837. The value of American exports 
 has been increased to make the cost of tea per lb. correspond to that 
 of shipments by British ships. 
 
 2 Chinese Repository, Jan., 1837. 
 
 3 The Portuguese (Macaense) generally occupied inferior clerical 
 positions in firms of other nationality. 
 
THE GILD MERCHANT 83 
 
 These figures all tend to demonstrate that the 
 trade was in the hands of the British — from England 
 and from India — and of the Americans. 
 
 The English were divided into two categories. 
 On the one side was the East India Company, having 
 a statutory monopoly x of the entire British trade, 
 and actually monopolising that with England. On 
 the other, were the " country merchants " (English 
 and Parsee) trading in " country ships," under the 
 licence, and subject in all matters to the control, of 
 the East India Company — but their operations were 
 strictly limited to the trade between Canton and 
 India ; they could import opium (value in 1836-37, 
 $19,471,238) and raw cotton (value in 1836-37, 
 $8,225,1513), and they could ship tea and silk to India, 
 but they were absolutely shut out from the trade 
 with England. 
 
 The Americans, whose previous connexion with 
 the tea trade had been through the East India Com- 
 pany by way of Boston Harbour, first entered into 
 the Canton trade in 1784 with one ship. They were 
 the " free-traders " of the day, in the sense in which 
 the word was then understood ; in America there 
 were no privileged corporations, the trade was open 
 to all on equal conditions, and the merchants and 
 sailors of Boston, Salem and New York asked only a 
 fair field and no favour. They soon assumed a leading 
 position in the crowded factories of Canton, and the 
 contrast between the opportunities open to them 
 and to the equally enterprising and able " country 
 merchants " under the British flag was galling to the 
 latter in the extreme. 2 An agitation was begun in 
 
 1 The " Chinese Monopoly" of Crawford's pamphlet. 
 
 2 Auber, p. 323; Matheson, passim; " British Relations," passim ; 
 "Facts Relating," Sec, passim. 
 
 F 2 
 
84 THE GILDS OF CHINA 
 
 England, in 1834 the monopoly of the East India 
 Company was abolished, and Lord Napier was sent 
 out as Chief Superintendent of British Trade in 
 China, to put commercial and other matters on a 
 proper footing. The question of the equality of 
 nations was thereby brought to the front. This the 
 Chinese stubbornly refused to admit, and insisted 
 that commercial matters should be treated on com- 
 mercial lines. They were quite satisfied with the 
 existing situation, and saw no reason for changing it. 
 
 The position of the American traders had raised 
 the question, but the English, though with some 
 vacillation, carried it to a settlement single handed. 
 War ensued, and the treaty of Nanking, signed August 
 29, 1842, provided in its fifth article that — "The 
 government of China having compelled British mer- 
 chants trading at Canton to deal exclusively with 
 certain Chinese merchants called Hong merchants (or 
 Co-hong), who had been licensed by the Chinese 
 government for that purpose, the Emperor of China 
 agrees to abolish that practice in future at all ports 
 where British merchants may reside, and to permit 
 them to carry on their mercantile transactions with 
 whatever persons they please." The second article 
 also provided for the opening of four additional ports 
 to foreign trade, thereby depriving Canton of its 
 position as the sole staple. 
 
 Thus ended the omnipotent gild merchant of 
 Canton, smitten by the power of belligerent traders 
 from the West ; but the merchants of China, driven 
 back upon their entrenchments, have continued the 
 battle with the silent and more effective weapons of 
 the craft gild and the provincial club. With these 
 institutions of China to-day, institutions which dis- 
 
THE GILD MERCHANT 85 
 
 appeared as living realities from England with the 
 Middle Ages, the Chinese have maintained their 
 own in what would, without them, have been the 
 hopeless contest of modern knowledge and procedure 
 against the antiquated methods of the past. 
 
WORKS CITED 
 
 i. Ashley. "An Introduction to English Economic History and 
 Theory." By W. J. Ashley. 2 vols. London : Longmans, 
 Green & Co., 1906. 
 
 2. Atton and Holland. "The King's Customs." By Henry 
 
 Atton and Henry H. Holland. London: Murray, 1908. 
 
 3. AursER. " China, an Outline of its Government, Laws and 
 
 Policy." By Peter Auber. London : Parbury, Allen & Co., 
 1834. 
 
 4. "British Relations with the Chinese Empire in 1832: Com- 
 
 parative Statement of the English and American Trade with 
 India and Canton." Anon. London : Parbury, Allen & Co., 
 1832. 
 
 5. Crawfurd. "The Chinese Monopoly Examined." By J. Craw- 
 
 furd. London: Ames Ridgway, 1830. 
 
 6. Davis. "The Chinese." By John Francis Davis. London: 
 
 Charles Knight & Co., 1836. 
 
 7. " Decennial Reports of the Chinese Imperial Maritime 
 
 Customs." First series, 1882-1891. Second series, 1892-1901 ; 
 2 vols. 
 
 8. ElTEL. "Europe in China, the History of Hongkong." By 
 
 E. J. Eitel. Hongkong : Kelly & Walsh, 1895. 
 
 9. " Facts Relating to Chinese Commerce in a Letter from a 
 
 British Resident in China to his Friend in England." Anon. 
 London: J. M. Richardson, 1829. 
 
 10. GUTZLAFF. "China Opened: or, a Display of the . . . Com- 
 
 merce . . . &c, of the Chinese Empire." By Charles Gutzlaff. 
 2 vols. London : Smith, Elder & Co., 1838. 
 
 11. HUNTER. "The Fan-Kwae at Canton before Treaty Days, 
 
 1825-1844." By an old Resident (W. C. Hunter). London: 
 Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1882. 
 
 12. LjUNGSTEDT. "Contribution to an Historical Sketch of the 
 
 Portuguese Settlements in China, &c." By A. L., Knt. 
 (A. Ljungstedt). Macao : 1832. 
 
 13. Macgowan. "Chinese Guilds, or Chambers of Commerce and 
 
 Trades Unions." By D. J. Macgowan, M.D. In Journal of 
 North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1888-1889, 
 pp. 133-192- 
 
 14. Martin. " China : Political, Commercial and Social." By 
 
 R. Montgomery Martin. 2 vols. London : James Madden, 
 1847- 
 
WORKS CITED 87 
 
 15. MATHESON. "The Present Position and Prospects of the British 
 
 Trade with China." By James Matheson. London : Smith, 
 Elder & Co., 1836. 
 
 16. Morse. "The Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire." 
 
 By H. B. Morse. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1908. 
 
 17. NYE. " Peking the Goal : the Sole Hope of Peace." By Gideon 
 
 Nye. Canton, 1873. 
 
 18. Unwin. "The Gilds and Companies of London." By George 
 
 Unwin. London: Methuen, 1908. 
 
 19. Williams. "The Middle Kingdom." By S. Wells Williams. 
 
 New York: Scribners, 1907. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbreviations : 
 
 (Ch.) = Chinese, in China. 
 (Cn.) = Canton. 
 
 (Eng.): 
 
 (Ln.) = 
 
 English, in England. 
 London. 
 
 Accounts, dates of settlement 
 
 (Ch.), 42 
 Activity of gilds (Ch.), 3 
 Alien. See Foreign 
 Americans in China trade, 58, 83 
 Amoy, trade at, 58, 68 
 Apprentices (Eng.), 10, 19 ; (Ch.), 
 
 17, 30, 32 
 Arms, introduction prohibited 
 
 (Cn.), 73 
 Association. See Fraternity 
 Audit of members' accounts (Ch.), 
 
 14. 15. 4i 
 
 Bailiff presiding over hallmoot 
 
 (Eng.), 11 
 Barter, exchange of imports for 
 
 exports, 52, 79 
 Benefits, personal, gilds claiming, 
 
 2, 49, 60, 67 
 Benevolent funds, administration 
 
 of (Eng.), 7, 18, 31 
 Bequests to gild or fraternity 
 
 (Eng.), ii, 13 
 Biting to death no murder (Ch.), 
 
 3° 
 Bogue, entrance to river (Cn.), 64, 
 
 67, 72, 76 
 Boycott, application of, 5, 14, 21, 
 
 22, 23, 28, 30, 31, 48, 56, 57 
 Burgesses, action and authority 
 
 (Eng.), 2, 19, 62 
 
 Candles and wax as fines, 17, 18, 
 28, 29 
 
 Canonised worthy, fraternity dedi- 
 cated to (Ch.), 7, 38, 39 
 
 Canton, trade at, 58, 64, 67, 68, 
 81, 82 
 
 Cases taken before gild tribunal 
 (Eng.), 25, 26; (Ch.), 27, 38, 
 43. 44, 56 
 
 Cemetery provided by gild (Ch.), 
 39, 47, 48 
 
 Cessation of business. See Boycott 
 
 Church, gild connexion with 
 (Eng.), 16, 17. See Temple 
 
 Clannishness of Swatow men, 53 
 
 Clearing house, Bankers' gild as 
 (Ch.), 12 
 
 Coercion of individual, 5, 27 
 
 Coffins for gild members (Ch.), 18, 
 40 
 
 Co-hong, action of (Cn.), 59, 70, 
 72, 80; formed (1720), 66; 
 formally chartered (1760), 69 ; 
 dissolved (1771 ), 69; re-estab- 
 lished (1782), 70 ; abolished 
 (1842), 84 
 
 Collective lordship (gild jurisdic- 
 tion), 26 
 
 Combination of community, 27, 29 , 
 
 S3 
 Commission, rates of (Ch.), 15, 23, 
 
 5i. 55 
 Committee of gild (Eng.), 12, 60 ; 
 
 (Ch.), 12, 37, 49, S3 
 Commuting toll or tax by gild 
 
 (Eng.), 11, 25 ; (Ch.), 27, 29 
 Comprador of ship (Cn.), 76, 77 
 Consoo guarantee fund (Cn.), 70, 
 
 80 
 Control of trade by gild (Eng.), 
 
 19, 60; (Ch.), 18,40, 50, 53, 55, 
 
 67. 68, 75, 77, 78 
 Corvee duties of gild (Ch.), 12 
 Cotton, raw, value of (Cn.), 83 
 Country merchants (Cn.), 83 
 Court, weekly, of gild (Eng.), 11, 
 
 25, 26 
 Courts, national ; cases removed 
 
 from (Eng.), 25, 26, 27 ; (Ch.), 
 
 27, 38, 44, 56 ; trial of cases in 
 
 (Eng.), 27 ; (Ch.), 27, 45 
 
INDEX 
 
 89 
 
 Craft gild, 9, 84 
 
 (Eng.) Bakers (Ln.), 25 
 
 Drapers (Ln.), 10, 13, 17 
 Fishmongers (Ln.), 25 
 Goldsmiths (Ln.), 16 
 Hatters (Ln.), 19 
 Skinners (Ln.), 16 
 Tailors (Ln.), 16 
 Weavers (Ln.), 16, 25 
 
 (Lincoln), 16 
 
 (Ch.) Bankers (Ningpo), 10, 12, 
 15, 22 
 
 (Shanghai), 21 
 
 (Wuchow), 15 
 
 (Wuhu), 14, 22 
 
 Blacksmiths (Wenchow), 
 
 17 
 
 Carpenters (Wenchow), 
 12 
 
 Commission Agents (Wu- 
 chow), 15 
 
 Druggists (Ningpo), 14 
 
 (Wenchow), 10, 17, 
 
 23 
 Fish-hook-makers (Wen- 
 chow), 11 
 Fishmongers (Ningpo), 
 
 14. 23 
 Goldbeaters (Soochow), 
 29 
 
 (Wenchow), 1 1 
 
 Millers (Wenchow), 12 
 Needle-makers (Wen- 
 chow), 11 
 Opium (Ningpo), 29 
 
 (Wuchow), 15, 23 
 
 Pawnbrokers (Wuchow), 
 
 15 
 Servants (Shanghai), 31 
 Silk (Shanghai), 21 
 Silk-weavers (Wenchow), 
 
 17. 29. 33 
 Stationers (Wuchow), 15 
 Tea (Shanghai), 12, 14, 
 
 (Hankow), 28 
 
 Timber (Ningpo), 15 
 
 (Wuchow), 15 
 
 Wheelbarrow (Shanghai), 
 
 30 
 Credit, given or not given (Ch.), 
 
 24.42 
 
 Dead, respect shown to (Eng.), 7, 
 18 ; (Ch.), 18, 39, 47, 48 
 
 Debt, action in regard to (Eng.), 
 20 ; (Ch.), 23, 24 
 
 Debts due to foreign traders (Cn.), 
 69, 73 ; due by foreign traders 
 (Cn.), 81 
 
 Delegation of powers to gild, 19, 
 20, 26, 27 
 
 Demi-god, fraternity or gild dedi- 
 cated to (Ch.), 7, 17, 39, 55 
 
 Democratic organisation of gild 
 (Ch.), 9, 12, S3 
 
 Deposit by gild member (Ch.), 14 
 
 Dinners ; a gild function, 7, 17 ; 
 as fine or on initiation (Ch.), 14, 
 28, 29, 42 
 
 Display of stocks required (Eng.), 
 
 19 
 Disputes settled by gild (Eng.), 
 25, 26; (Ch.), 27, 29, 38, 43, 
 
 44. 5 5 
 Distrust of delegated authority 
 
 (Ch.), 12 
 Dutch in China trade, 58, 82 
 
 East India Company, English 
 
 (Cn.), 59, 69, 83, 84 
 Emperor. See Sovereign 
 Emperor's merchant (Cn.), 65 
 Endowment funds of gilds (Eng.), 
 
 13 ; (Ch.), 14 
 English in China trade, 58, 82, 83 
 Entrance fee in money (Ch.), 14, 
 
 15. 17. 4i 
 
 Equality, national, assertion of 
 (Cn.), 84 
 
 Ethical principles applied to busi- 
 ness (Ch.), 21 
 
 Exclusion from gild (Ch.), 1 1 
 
 Extraterritoriality, instance of 
 (Eng.), 63 
 
 Factories, foreign (Cn.), 57, 71, 
 74, 77, 80, 83 
 
 Farm. See Commuting 
 
 Fictitious. See Speculative 
 
 Fines, money, levied by gild (Ch.), 
 14, 28, 42, 51, 52, 55 ; other 
 fines, see Candles, Dinners, 
 Firecrackers, Theatrical 
 
 Fire risk on goods (Ch.), 42 
 
 Firecrackers as fines, 55 
 
 Foochow, trade at, 58 
 
 Foreign trader, relation to gild 
 (Eng.), 10, 19, 20, 61, 62 ; (Ch.), 
 22, 28, 29, 56, 65, 67, 68, 70, 
 
 74- 75- 77, 80 
 Fortune, accumulation of, 4, 80, 81 
 Fraternity, religious, 7, 11, 13, 
 
 31 
 
9° 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Fraternity precedent to craft gild 
 
 (Eng.), 8, 16 
 Free-traders, Americans as, 83 
 French authorities at Shanghai, 
 
 action of, 46, 47 
 
 in China trade, 58, 82 
 
 Funerals. See Dead 
 
 Government, national, working 
 of (Ch.), 1, 20. See also 
 Officials 
 
 of gild (Eng.), ",60; (Ch.), 
 
 12, 37. 49, S3 
 
 Governor, office of (Cn.), 72, 79 
 
 Hallmoot of gild (Eng.), 11, 25, 
 26 
 
 Hanse. See Merchant gild 
 
 Hien, magistrate (Cn.), 72, 76, 79 
 
 Honourable character of mer- 
 chants (Cn.), 80 
 
 Hoppo, action taken by (Cn.), 65, 
 67, 69, 71, 79, 80 
 
 Host, foreigner required to go to 
 (Eng.), 62 ; (Ch.), 74 
 
 Hostility of alien merchants (Ch.), 
 
 37- 40, 44 
 Howqua, contributions and wealth 
 
 (Cn.), 81 
 Hwei or Fraternity (Ch.), 7 
 Hwei-kwan, name of provincial 
 
 club (Ch.), 35 
 
 Impositions. See Taxes 
 Income of gild (Eng.), 13 ; (Ch.), 
 
 13. 38,49- 54, 55 
 Independent initiative checked, 
 
 24 
 Inspection of wares, 19, 23 
 Interest, rate of (Ch.j, 4, 69 n. 4, 
 
 73 
 
 Journeymen (Eng.), 20, 31 ; 
 
 (Ch.), 32, 34, 41 
 Judgment of gild decisive (Ch.), 
 
 15- 23 
 Jurisdiction over gild members 
 (Eng.), 25, 60; (Ch.), 27, 43 
 
 King. See Sovereign 
 
 Kung-so ; name of craft gild (Ch.), 
 9 ; occasional name of pro- 
 vincial club (Ch.), 35 ; Consoo 
 fund (Cn.), 70 
 
 Law, administration of (Eng.), 2, 
 27 ; (Ch.), 2, 4, 27, 80 
 
 Limit of foreigner's residence 
 (Eng.), 62, 63 ; (Ch.), 74, 76 
 
 Loans from foreign traders (Eng.), 
 62, 64, 79 
 
 London had no gild merchant, 60 
 
 Loss on trade in English products 
 (Cn.), 78 
 
 Macao, place of foreign residence, 
 
 58, 74, 76 
 Manager of gild (Ch.), 37, 49, 50, 
 
 54. See also Warden 
 Markets, authority over (Eng.), 
 
 19; (Ch.), 51 
 Measurement charges on ships 
 
 (Cn.), 66, 76 
 Measures, standard, 19, 23, 24, 43 
 Membership of gild (Eng.), 10, 60 ; 
 
 (Ch.), 10, 36, 49 ; compulsory, 
 
 10, 36 
 Merchant gild (Eng.), 59, 61 ; 
 
 Newchwang, 49 ; Swatow, 53 ; 
 
 Canton, 57 ; not general (Ch.), 7 
 Mistery. See Craft gild 
 Money, transfer, at Newchwang, 
 
 52 
 Monopoly, English and Chinese 
 
 compared, 79 ; of E. I. C, 83 ; 
 
 abolished, 84 
 Monsoon and shipping, 75, 76 
 Mortuary provided by gild (Ch.), 
 
 40, 47, 48 
 Municipal government, 5, 9, 18, 
 
 20, 24, 26, 46, 49, 55 
 
 Napier, Lord, Chief Superinten- 
 dent, 84 
 Ningpo, trade at, 58, 68 
 Number of apprentices, 30, 33 
 
 Officials, character of (Eng.), 1 ; 
 
 (Ch.), 1, 21, 32, 35 
 protection against (Ch.), 1, 
 
 30, 36, 40, 44, 45, 54, 55, 56, 
 
 57 
 relation to gild (Ch.), 21, 37, 
 
 38, 39, 45, 64, 65, 70, 79, 81 
 Oligarchical government of gild 
 
 (Eng.), 12; (Ch.), 37,64 
 Opium, value of (Cn.), 83 
 Oppression. See Persecution 
 Origin of gilds (Eng.), 9 ; (Ch.), 
 
 9- 36 
 
 Pageants, setting forth of, 18 
 Partnership between member and 
 non-member (Ch.), 29, 42 
 
INDEX 
 
 9 1 
 
 People, character of (Eng.), 2 ; 
 
 (Ch.), 1, 21 
 Persecution of offenders by gild, 
 
 5. 29. 55 c t 
 
 Petitions, presentation of, by 
 
 foreigners (Cn.), 74 
 Pleasure parties, restrictions on 
 
 (Cn.), 73. 75 
 Political differences, East and 
 
 West, 1 
 Portuguese in China trade, 58 
 Poverty of people (Ch.), 4 
 Prices and rates fixed by gild 
 
 (Ch.), 12, 15, 2i, 22, 23, 43, 50, 
 
 5L78 
 inaccessible to foreigners 
 
 (Cn.), 75. 78 
 Provincial club (Ch.), 35 
 
 At Peking, 36, 37 
 
 Canton, at Pakhoi, 44 
 
 at Wuchow, 44 
 
 Hanyang, at Ichang, $8, 41 
 Hukwang, at Wuchow, 43 
 Kiangnan, at Chungking, 38 
 Ningpo, at Shanghai, 46 
 
 at Wenchow, 40, 45 
 
 Shantung, at Ningpo, 42 
 
 Public opinion, force of, 5, 21 
 Purchases by foreigners, restric- 
 tions on (Eng.), 62, 63 ; (Ch.), 
 74. 75- 78 
 
 Quality, maintenance of (Eng.), 
 
 19, 61 
 Quarterage from gild members 
 
 (Eng.), 13 ; (Ch.), 16 
 
 Rates. See Prices 
 
 Regulation of foreign trade (Eng.), 
 
 61 ; (Ch.), 64, 65, 72 
 Relations suspended pending un- 
 settled dispute (Ch.), 22, 23 
 Religious feeling, intensity of 
 
 (Eng.), 8, 16 
 Residents, foreign (Cn.), 82 
 Resistance to restrictions (Cn.), 
 
 63, 64, 67, 69 
 Restrictions imposed on foreigners 
 
 (Eng.), 19, 20, 62 ; (Ch.), 64, 65, 
 
 72 
 Revenues. See Income 
 Riot, instigated by gild (Ch.), 30, 
 
 31, 47, 48 ; avoided by gild, 
 
 55 
 Rotation in office (Ch.), 12, 15, 
 
 53 
 
 Rumour, effect of (Ch.), 5 
 
 Saint, fraternity dedicated to 
 
 (Eng.), 7, 16, 17 
 Sales by foreigners restricted 
 
 (Eng.), 20, 62, 63 ; (Ch.), 74, 
 
 75. 77 
 Scales. See Measures 
 Secretary, permanent, of gild 
 
 (Ch.), 13, 27, 37, 53, 54 
 Security merchant (Cn.), 68, 74, 
 
 75. 77, 78 
 Servants, Chinese, engagement by 
 
 foreigners (Cn.), 65, 73, 77 
 Service as apprentice, 33 
 Settlements at Shanghai, status 
 
 of, 46 
 Shiuhing, former viceregal seat 
 
 (Cn.), 71 
 Social differences, East and West, 
 
 1 
 Sovereign, action of (Eng.), 1, 18, 
 
 62, 79 ; (Ch.), 64, 79 
 Spanish in China trade, 58 
 Speculative dealings prohibited 
 
 (Ch.), 22, 43 
 Staple, Canton the, 57, 59, 68, 84 
 Steelyard, 7, 35, 57, 64 
 Storage of goods (Ch.), 42 
 Strike usually succeeds (Ch.), 
 
 32 
 Subscriptions from gild members 
 
 (Eng.), 13 ; (Ch.), 81 
 Supercargoes of E. I. C, action of 
 
 (Cn.), 64, 65, 67 
 Swatow, characteristics of, 53 
 
 Tang, occasional name of craft 
 
 gild (Ch.), 9 
 Tax levied by gild (Ch.), 14, 15, 
 
 4i 
 Taxes imposed on foreigners (Cn.), 
 
 66, 67, 69, 76, J7 
 Temple, gild connexion with (Ch.), 
 
 1 7> 32, 39- See Church 
 Theatrical performance (Ch.), a 
 
 gild function, 16, 39 ; as fine, 
 
 28, 29, 42 
 Toll. See Tax 
 Trade at Canton, value, 82 
 
 operations of, 3 
 
 unions, 32 
 
 Tronage, right of (Eng.), 19 
 
 Viceroy, action of (Cn.), 67, 69, 
 7i. 79 
 
9 2 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Walking, sole mode of progres- 
 sion (Cn.), 73 
 
 War-ships, restrictions on (Cn.). 
 72 
 
 Wardens of gilds (Eng.), 10, 11, 
 19, 32, 60. See Manager (Ch.) 
 
 Wax. See Candles 
 
 Women, introduction prohibited 
 
 (Cn.), 73 
 Workmen. See Journeymen 
 Worship, common, of gilds (Eng.), 
 
 16; (Ch.), 17, 39 
 
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