Mr. White also reported that the Chinese, though friendly to him, and apparently willing to help, had “no authority whatever.” They admitted that the treaty was not being carried out in a proper spirit, and Mr. White gathered that the Tibetans actually repudiated it, and asserted that it was signed by the British Government and the Chinese, and therefore they had nothing to do with it. In any case, they maintained that they had a right to impose what taxes they chose at Phari so long as goods were allowed to pass Yatung free. The Chinese confessed that they were not able to manage the Tibetans. The Tibetans would not obey them, and the Chinese were afraid to give any orders. China was suzerain over Tibet only in name, was Mr. White’s conclusion. Negotiation was, therefore, he said, most difficult, for though the Chinese agreed to any proposal, they were quite unable to answer for the Tibetans, and the Tibetans, when spoken to, either sheltered themselves behind the Chinese or said that they had no orders to give any answer for Lhasa, and could only report.
Mr. White’s immediate superior, the Commissioner of the Rajshahi Division, agreed with him that the levying of a duty of 10 per cent. _ad valorem_ at Phari was a clear breach of the main article of the Trade Convention. He contended that by Article IV. of the Regulations it is provided that goods entering Tibet for British India across the Sikkim-Tibet frontier, or _vice versa_, shall be exempt from duty for a period of five years, and that this meant a general exemption from all duties, wherever imposed, the place of realization being altogether irrelevant. He recommended, therefore, that this breach of the main article of the treaty, to which all the other provisions were ancillary, should be made the subject of a representation to the Chinese Government.
The Government of Bengal took the same view. They thought the levy of the duty at Phari undoubtedly seemed to be inconsistent with the terms of the treaty, which provided for free trade for a period of five years. And the Lieutenant-Governor felt that no time should be lost in making this matter the subject of a representation to the Government of China.
And in this view our Minister at Peking, Mr. (afterwards Sir Nicholas) O’Conor, Ambassador at St. Petersburg and Constantinople, thoroughly concurred, and suggested to the Viceroy that the imposition of a 10 per cent. _ad valorem_ duty at Phari should be very strongly protested against as contrary to treaty stipulations.