Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/152

native officials. It is evident, however, that something of the kind was virtually essential in the early days when the foreigner, having no facilities for reaching the Chinese producer or consumer, must have descended to fortuitous retail transactions in the immediate vicinity of his warehouses had not the Chinese syndicate undertaken the functions of supplying him with exports and disposing of his imports. Thus on the abolition of this Hong system by treaty (in 1842) a void was created that had to be filled at once. The foreign official, on the one hand, no longer found the Hong Syndicate interposing between him and the Chinese Government, but, on the other, the foreign merchant found that the bridge between him and his Chinese clients had disappeared. Into this breach the "comprador" stepped. "Comprador" is not a Chinese term: it is derived from the Portuguese word comprar (to buy), and it was originally used to designate the Chinese agent through whose instrumentality foreign merchants effected their sales and purchases. There is no more remarkable figure in the history of commerce than this comprador. Serving aliens whom his nationals regarded with aversion, shared doubtless by himself though in a lesser degree, he nevertheless discharged duties of large trust with almost uniform fidelity, and in his business transactions behaved toward these strangers so as to win their unlimited confidence, their esteem, and even their