The man behind the treaty

The man behind the treaty

The life of Sir John Bowring, the free-trade negotiator and chronicler of old Siam

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

In Thai history, Bowring is the title of the 1855 treaty that is the major landmark in Siam's transition to the modern world. Bowring is also less well known as the author of a bulky book about Mongkut's Siam (the reign of King Rama IV). But John Bowring himself is like a character in a drama who is there because the plot requires him, but who never takes shape as a person.

Free Trade’s First Missionary
Sir John Bowring In Europe And Asia
By Philip Bowring
Hong Kong University Press
1,468 baht
Available at Kinokuniya and on Kindle from
Amazon

Philip Bowring, the distinguished Hong Kong-based journalist, wants to put this right. He has compiled a biography of his distant relative which presents him as a remarkable man of a remarkable era.

John Bowring was born in 1792 in Exeter, a small port on England's south coast, son of a trader in woollen goods. He left school at age 13 to work in his father's business.

Only a few years earlier, the horizons for someone of such modest origins in aristocracy-dominated England would have been very limited. But Bowring was born on the cusp of the modern age. The Industrial Revolution was creating new ways to make money. The French Revolution had released new ideas that broke down old barriers. And Britain's growing imperial position in the world created untold new opportunities for someone of some talent and even more ambition.

John Bowring was blessed with unusual talents and exceptional energy. He moved to London at age 18, started a trading company, visited Spain and discovered the outside world and his special facility for languages. His first publication was a translation of Spanish poetry. He would go on to write his own poetry and hymns and a series of works explaining exotic parts of the world that were now subject to imperial Britain's global view — Egypt, Syria, Greece, Turkey, China, Siam and the Philippines. He eventually claimed to have mastered over 25 languages from Gascon to Lettish.

In 1820, he fell in with Jeremy Bentham, the philosopher and prominent advocate of social reform. He began to move in the coterie of thinkers and artists who saw themselves as liberals, reformers and pioneers of a new age. He spoke and wrote on causes ranging from abolition of slavery to reform of public accounting and the parliamentary franchise. His favourite cause was free trade, for which he became a passionate advocate.

He also became fascinated with the way new technology was transforming the world and creating new economic opportunities to boot. He invested in the booming businesses of steel and railways and tried to carve out a role as an enlightened entrepreneur. As his talent and energy brought success after success in this expanding world, his self-confidence and ambition grew. In 1834 he was elected as an MP and spent two short periods in parliament. His advocacy of various reforms was only modestly successful, but he began to move in the world of power and public office.

Like many who soared up the social pyramid, he could never balance his personal books. He spent too much on big houses and other external trappings of a man of importance. He invested unwisely and did not have the cushion to ride the booms and slumps of the economy. He began to rely on public appointments to keep himself and his family afloat. In 1848 he took up the post of consul in Guangzhou, largely because he needed the money. Six years later he moved up to become plenipotentiary in China and governor of Hong Kong.

This was an extraordinary move for someone of such liberal pretensions because it placed him at the spear tip of Britain's imperial thrust into China. The post of consul in Guangzhou was a result of Britain battering open China in the First Opium War in 1840-2.

Bowring sincerely believed that free trade would bring benefits to all parties, but the Chinese authorities were not convinced. They continued to block Western inroads, not even allowing Consul Bowring to enter the city of Guangzhou. Bowring faced the tricky question of whether countries such as China should be forced to enjoy the benefits of free trade by gunboat diplomacy. In 1854, he ordered the shelling of Chinese forts and Guangzhou defences, leading to the Second Opium War and the humiliation of China. Back home in England, he was reviled by his former liberal allies. In Hong Kong, his attempts at reform annoyed both corrupt bureaucrats and tycoon traders. His reputation was ruined.

In the midst of this debacle, he was dispatched to Bangkok in 1855 to negotiate a trade treaty. The commission occurred by chance because the leading candidate was indisposed. For the conclusion of this historically momentous document, Bowring was in Bangkok for just two weeks. He left the negotiations to his assistant, Harry Parkes, and spent his time hobnobbing with King Mongkut and other members of the court. King Mongkut warmed to Bowring's eclectic talents, and appointed him as Siam's ambassador to the courts of Europe. A year later, Bowring published his two-volume work on Siam, compiled from information supplied by the king, missionaries and traders. King Mongkut complained that there were many mistakes in the information supplied by Bishop Pallegoix. Philip Bowring claims the treaty "launched Siam on a free-trade path, which is has largely maintained every since" and "helped towards the survival of Siam as an independent kingdom". While older histories gave the treaty an almost magical role in transforming Siam, recent scholarship is more restrained. Falling freight rates probably had more impact on trade than the treaty's limited changes in taxes and tariffs, though its symbolic importance is undeniable. The main result of the treaty was that taxes on opium imported from British India became a major source of the Siamese government's revenue for the next 50 years.

Sir John Bowring's reputation has been overshadowed by the debacle in China. The author claims that he "deserves to be recognised as one of the most remarkable men of his era" because of the extraordinary breadth of his achievements in an era of expanding British imperial power.

The biography displays all the skill of an experienced writer and journalist. It's a joy to read. For those interested in Thai history, this book breathes life into a familiar name.

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