Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/229

This system, though eminently practical and well adapted to the conditions of the era, evoked much abuse at first, the Chinese officials being accused not only of insufferable pride because they avoided direct dealings with the alien, but also of organising the Hong Merchants solely for the purpose of subjecting foreigners to extortion. Yet the testimony of impartial observers shows clearly that even in the beginning of the nineteenth century when official and popular prejudice against aliens had assumed much larger dimensions than it showed a hundred years previously, the Hong Merchants constituted an excellent medium between foreign traders and native clients, discharging their functions as middlemen with fidelity and taking a genuine interest in the promotion of trade. That the system remained throughout entirely free from abuse cannot be supposed. Sometimes dishonest men obtained admission to the ranks of the Hong Merchants, and since, by order of the Emperor, the whole body had to be jointly responsible for the liabilities of each member, there was evident opportunity for chicanery. Thus, in 1820, two of the association contracted debts to foreign merchants, or misappropriated funds received from them, to the total amount of two million dollars, which sum the association had to make good. Then the principle of corporate responsibility was abolished in favour of individual liability, which also displayed its untrustworthiness in 1838