CHINA
377
nore
Japan. A concomitant but still greater danger to the country than civil war, however, was the growing activity of Communist banditti, who overran and devastated many provinces and cities and held many captives, including foreigners, for ransom. With this shadow of civil war and banditry hovering over all the main arteries of trade, commercial activities were in many districts naturally seriously embarrassed and at times brought to a standstill, and the situation was further aggravated by the enhanced cost of transport rendering. trading unremunerative in some places. This state of affairs is the deplorable inasmuch as the country was blessed with excellent crops, which in certain bandit-infested areas were perforce left rotting in the fields. Bountiful rice harvests were garnered, and the price of rice fell accordingly. In certain districts of Anhwei, local officials are reported to have repaired the old gar- naries and built new ones for conserving surplus against days of famine, and it would be well if this old-established custom were revived in other parts of the country also. Notwithstanding her vast agricultural wealth, China has been-compelled to purchase from abroad foodstuffs in the form of cereals alone to the value of over 164 million Haikwan taels. The slump in the world price of silver and the rise in gold exchange to unprecedented levels, noted in the preceding year's report, were accentuated during 1930 and had an even more crushing and paralysing effect on commerce, once again giving to trade sta- tistics an inflated and fictitious value out of all proportion to the volume of goods actually in circulation. In China silver is currency and is not regarded as a commodity, as it is abroad. An unprejudiced observer might point to a long list of other commodities which have had their values shorn in the world-wide depression, and he would perhaps be correct in not laying too much stress on silver. For those having business in and with China, how- ever, there is nothing more paramount. It enters into and permeates every phase of commercial life, and a catastrophic decline such as has been experi- enced undermines and upsets its very foundations. In view of the heavy fall in the gold price of silver, apprehensions were felt that the revenue for the year 1930 might be insufficient to meet foreign loan obligations, and the Government decided that from the 1st February 1930 the Haikwan tael as the unit of calculation for import duties should be abolished and all import duties be collected uniformly on the basis of a Customs gold unit. This naturally had the effect of automatically increasing the duty rate on all goods paying specific duties, but was unavoidable in view of the essential need of ensuring China's credit in international financial circles. It is perhaps fitting, as a matter of historic interest, to place on record the fact that the suggestion of collecting import duties on a gold basis was first made in 1901 by Sir Robert Hart when the Government was faced with the difficulty of securing sufficient funds to cover both foreign obligations existing as a charge on revenue aud the then newly imposed Boxer Indemnity. The effect on trade of the new Tariff, promulgated on the 29th December 1930 for enforcement on the 1st January 1931, yet remains to be seen, but, although it may bear hardly on a few individual articles, it will not, in all probability, seriously interfere with business and should, on the other hand, prove beneficial to the country's in- dustries, many of which are still in their infancy. It is likely, however, to engender a recrudescence of smuggling to an even greater extent than here- tofore, and the Customs authorities, therefore, are inaugurating a preventive service. Apart from loss to the revenue, smuggling is inimical to the est interests of all commercial undertakings, and it would be as well were traders and chambers of commerce to impress on their respective governments the desirability of co-operation with China in the suppression of this illicit traffic in goods.
AREA AND POPULATION
China proper, extending over 1,335,841 square miles, is divided into eighteen provinces. Considerable trouble and care has been taken by the Postal Administration to obtain an estimate of the population of China. Recourse was had to the assistance of the provincial officials, which in most cases was willingly accorded. Below is given