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China and the West The Maritime Customs Service Archive from the Second Historical Archives of China, Nanjing Part Three: Semi-Official Correspondence with Selected Ports Reels 106-173 General Editors Dr Robert Bickers, Senior Lecturer in History, University of Bristol Dr Hans van de Ven, Reader in History and Lecturer in Chinese Studies, University of Cambridge and Visiting Professor at the Centre for Republican History, Nanjing  The Second Historical Archives of ChinaIntroduction to Part Three  PAGE 11 Part Three: Maritime Customs Service Archive: Semi-Official Correspondence from Selected Ports The Chinese Maritime Customs Service operated with a strictly delineated and strictly limited repertoire of official forms of internal communication including Circulars, Despatches, Memoranda and Returns, as well as Semi-Official letters (半官性函件). Surviving runs of the latter type from four important ports are reproduced here, and provide a significant and unique new resource for the study of national and local events, their reception and their representation, in each of the four cities concerned (Hankow 汉口,江汉关, Harbin哈尔滨,滨江关, Shanghai上海,江海关, and Swatow汕头,潮海关). They also reveal much about the official -- and notably the unofficial -- history of the workings of the Customs Service and the lives of its personnel. The first official document dealing with Semi-Official Correspondence (Circular 15/1874, see Appendix 1, and Part 1 Reel 2) drew attention to the existing standing requirement in letters of appointment issued to Commissioners that they: address [the InspectorGeneral] semi-officially or privately every fortnight, as well to supplement your despatches as to keep me informed of interesting or important occurrences at your port or in its vicinity – occurrences which it might be expedient to bring to my notice, but which could not properly form the subject of official correspondence. In this Circular the Inspector General (IG), Robert Hart, went on to clarify w