Page 143 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

129.

Choosing among available silks for the most profitable

cargo was a difficult and tricky business. Like teas, prices

of silk piece goods rose and declined without warning. In the

Canton market a merchant did not have a choice of one dealer's

selling a product cheaper than another. Instead he nego­
tiated for merchandise through a Hong merchant, who delivered

the article at the market price. The only choice the merchant

had was in quality, for which he paid. This system of business

was more crucial to the tea trade than the silk trade. Teas,

furthermore, constituted the bulk of the American trade from

Canton. Although teas and silks constituted roughly the same

percentage of American imports from Canton in 1820-21, after

that season the percentage of teas increased both in terms

of volume and value while silks remained the same and then
51
declined.

After 1837 importation of silks from Canton fell off

precipitously. By that year the United States was producing

some of its own silk. In 1836 a Canton newspaper reprinted

an article from the New York American concerning the culture

of silk in the United States. The article mentioned companies

in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut and Kentucky with

an addendum that the government of Cuba wanted to introduce

silk culture to that island. Of the two companies in Massachu­

setts, the more important was the Northhampton Silk Company.

Interestingly, former American residents at Canton formed

51
11value of Cottons and Silks Imported to China from
the United States and Exported from China to the United States,"
Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review, XI (1844), 55.