Problems of circulation in the treaty port system

Abstract

This chapter closely examines the governing tactics employed by Qing officials and the discourse of commodity circulation produced by British nationals. The next section examines efforts to diagnose and solve the transit pass problem. Qing tax arrangements, the treaty transit tariff and transit pass were beneficial to commercial circulation. If the government could be persuaded to structure its fiscal system on the basis of commodity flows into and out of the empire, it would collect more revenue and free commercial circulation to grow. The transit pass problem resulted from the government's failure to recognize both the importance of these objective mediations to merchant behaviour and the benefits that would accrue to it from creating conditions that aided commercial circulation. The Yamen assiduously argued that changing the imperial fiscal structure was not a feasible option and pressed that more knowledgeable and better-disciplined officials could successfully implement the transit pass system in the current fiscal-administrative context.