WATSON, Ernest.

£450 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The Principal Articles of Chinese Commerce (Import and Export). Second edition, first printing, in the uncommon deluxe binding, of this guide to Republican China's commodity trade, written by a long-standing British employee of the customs service. The exhaustive text, embellished with illustrations and Chinese translations of key terms, includes sections on fibres (silk, cotton, and animal hair), oils, fats, waxes, dyes, colours, pigments, paints, metals, "miscellaneous products" (everything from bricks to Panama hats), and, of course, opium.The Chinese Maritime Customs Service was founded in 1854 by Britain and other foreign powers to collect taxes on waterborne trade for the Qing court, but its remit quickly expanded to include domestic customs administration, the postal service, waterway and harbour management, and meteorology. These areas of responsibility inevitably overlapped with diplomatic and political concerns, leaving it one of the most powerful bureaucratic entities in the country.To assist staff with their duties, it published handbooks written by expert employees, with the present work first published in 1923. The compiler, Ernest Watson, entered the service in 1901 and retired at the rank of chief appraiser in 1929. After retiring, he was nonetheless contracted as a tariff expert for a further three years, giving him time to prepare this second edition.

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