198
THE HONKGONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
our Excellency is possibly unaware that these | avoid delay, sent the ditions amount to no less than 371 per cent. Péking *** on messages to Europe, and 100 per cent. on
telegrams, and I ani requested to point outing effect :-- the reply to the protest of this Chamber states that governmental concurrence has been
obtained thereto.
The Committee enclose and particularly beg that your Excellency will carefully peruse the correspondence which has passed between this Chamber and the Telograph Companies, and, whilst still protesting against homeward charges being based on a gold parity, would especially draw your Excellency's attention to the want of equity in raising homeward rates on 1st August, 1896, and deferring the meagre re- duction in outward rates to 1st July, 1897.
The Committes further ask your Ex. cellency's attention to the addition of 100 per cent in charge for local messages, and with reference to Mr. Henningsen's reply that the benefit to the European Companies is unimportant owing to their having only four stations in China, I would point out that their action is none the less regrettable as it enables the Native Administration to col. lect double revenue, which, if the roport be true that the latter's lines already show a profit of 24 per cent. per annum, will (whilst entailing
little or no addition in working expenses) in- crease the profits enormously.
The Committee of this, Chamber are con-
vinced that the tradition of equity which actuated your predecessors in the capacity of Ministers and Superintendents of Trade" will still prevail, and therefore urge your Ex. cellency to review any sanction you may have afforded in the absence of information of the ill effects the increase of charges protested against will have on commercial interests.
above
A telegram has also been sent 13, Chamber of Commerce request, protest
against Tenngli Yainên Memorial taxi duction Silk Filatures. Explanation by latter. and I am desired to ask your influence as Doyen of the Consular Body in support of the views expressed by the Chamber. I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant,
E. FALFORD,
Chairman.
To Dr. O. Staabel, Consul-General for Ger-
many and Senior Consul.
Shanghai
.f
General Chamber of Commerce,
26th August, 1896.4 Sir, I have the honour to enclose copy of Memorial from the Tsungli Yamen to the Throne, published in foreign and native news- the Chamber to ask your Excellency detention papers, and am desired by the Committee of to the suggested scheme for taxation of silk Memorial is very definite; it clearly proposes filature factories and cotton milla. The that in order to "supplement likin" such-like taxation (which charges are increasing every season and are higher now than ever), the production of “cotton manufacture and silk filature" by machinery shall "pay double the duty of 5 per cent. prescribed in the case of foreign exports—this amounts to a duty of "greafter, whatever may be 10 per cent,
and
their destination, all goods will be exempt from
likin."
matiane. infor of their the
To His Excellency
for the U.8. of A matique, Paking
The 0. Saturday.
THE
The
injuries she sustained in the Nagasaki Expre
A very brief inspection Gaelic as she now lies in the dock
brolutely no knowledge of
conclusively show. that the damages, done to the
even
the starboard side, from her b more serions than previously reporte
under the stoke hold, the plates are bent and damaged, while in several have been smashed in. Upon the port there is little damage visible with the exce of a few started rivets and an ugly dent just beneath the boiler; space. Roughly
-frames, and speaking, about 40′ plates; bulkheads will require renewal or repairs, and
it may be accepted as settled that, the tessel will have to go to Hongkong for these to The proposal as it affects cotton mills (not be executed, after being temporarily patched up withstanding that it frees from likin goods to here. Altogether, the damage extends from the be sent into the interior) is very severe. The vessel's bow for about 250 feet aft, This letter is transmitted through H.B.M.'s Chamber, however, defer dealing with that indentations in the plates, on the Consul, who, we trust, will inform your Excel-point pending further information from the especially, bear witness to the owners of cotton mills now under construction,work done by the builders, M lancy by wire of the strenuous protest now recorded, and in view of the urgent importance and in the meantime I am to ask your Excellency Woolf. It appears that at th of the subject the Committee venture to ask to protest against the proposal. The urgency the impact with the rocks was the favour of a telegraphic reply through the of attention to the memorial alluded to is in ùumber of bags of coffee, th same channel. I have the honour to be, sir, respect to silk filatures, which are in a different cargo stowed on the top your Excellency's most obedient servant, position to cotton mills, seeing their production species of buffer, and took off.
is solely for export to Europe and the United amount of strain from the States.
the damage would have
When the vessel greater.
E. F. ALFORD, Chairman. To His Excellency Sir Claude M. MacDonald, K.C.M.G., H.B.M.'s Minister Plenipoten- tiary, Peking. THE CHAMBER TO THE BRITISH MINISTER. Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce,
Shanghai, 3rd September, 1896. Sir,-Adverting to the letter I had the honour of addressing to your Excellency on the 7th ult. regarding the recent increase in the telegraph tariff, I am desired to draw your Excellency's attention to the apparently inequitable | and racial distinction whereby messages sent by foreigners are charged twice 8.8 much as messages sent by natives over the European and Chinese lines; and I am to urge on your Excellency that in the interests of all classes of foreign residents in China this differential treatment calls for prompt and effective redress.-I have the honour to be, sir, your Excellency's obedient servant, ·
E. F. ALFORD, Chairman To H.E. Sir Clande, M. MacDonald, K.C.M.G., H.B.M.'s Minister and Superintendent of Trade, Peking.
THE PROPOSED INCREASED TAXATION SILK MILATURES.
The following letters from the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce to the Senior Consul and the Doyen of the Diplomatic Body are published—
Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce,
27th August, 1896. Sir, The Committee of the Chamber of Commerce desire me to ask your kind attention to the enclosed copy of a letter addressed to Colonel Denby as Doyen of the Corps Diplo matique in Peking.
main-stay, a heavy wire rope,
The reason for this was not, appa time, as the heel of the mainmast shifted in any way. It now appe that when the keel of the vessel near space was struck, the jar, cause jerk violently and thus carry, a
the mast to
the doc
Just as the Gaelic was going on Friday last she touched the ground the south side of the entrance. What this we do not know, but had she stanch the sill of the dock the probability would have broken her back. The be executed here are not expected to more than a few days, or a week at most, - * **~
DISASTROUS FLOOD AT KOBE.
GEEAT LO88 or LIFE.
The proposal to charge 10 per cent, ad valorem on silk filatures simply means 7 per cent. to 8 per cent. additional export duty, as the present duties of Tls. 10 per picul on white silk, Tls. 7. on yellow, and Tls. 5 on Tussahs practically range from rather over 14 per cent, to 3 per cent. on their respective values.
The Chamber, submits to your Excellency that this additional taxation will have a disastrous effect on the filature industry in China, with corresponding advantage to the production of those countries with which China now competes-and if it is intended to exempt native filatures worked by hand or such-life means it would not only be inequitable, but it would possibly lead to stoppage of filatares worked by machinery-it would put back China in that respect to a period of twenty years ago and throw out of employment not less than 25,000 natives who now derive a living and support for their families from those factories.
The native Government appears to imagine On the 30th August Kobe WBS that China's production of silk controls prices by a destructive storm, -- and on on foreign markets; on the contrary, foreign very extensive damage, resulted markets regulate the price which foreign mer-caused by heavy rain. The river chants in China can afford to pay for Chinese burst its banks, for the first time.
years, and a large portion of the › flooded. The breach) pocurred in a river about a quarter of a mile hara, and the bank for a lồng, feet was washed cleanzayı diverted from its normal Falongside its es
In its onwar everything be the many all the dwellings mile. If is est collapsed, and
cocoons.
It may interest your Excellency to know that the likin and loti-shui; tax which the 10 per cent, is to supplement, already amount to an average of about 9 per cent., so China proposes to penalise the improved silk product by no less than 19 per cent. I
The Chamber does not of course contemplate that such an injustice would be permitted on silk reeled from cocoons bought this season without a bint of the step now proposed. Your Excellency is possibly unaware that the exigencies of the trade necessitate the purchase of the entire annual requirements of cocoons for the filature are very much damaged factories in May and June, when the market |·lives lost is variously stated for cocoons usually opens and lasts but two or two hundred. Some of the bod three weeks, and that consequently this season's out to sea and others, purchases have already been effected at prices foreigner, (have). which would obviously never have been paid had of the the proposed additional taxation been contem-of-the
You will observe that it is an urgent protest against the taxation of silk filatures as proposed in the recent memorial from the Tsangli Yamen to the Thrones and the matter is of such grave consequence that this Chamber in order to | plated.
Hored sm
honser
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