266
INCREASED TAXATIÓN,
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
The announcement of a proposed increase of twenty-three per cent. in the municipal taxation of the colony will not be received by the community in a cheerful spirit. Coming as it does, concomitantly with a general increase in the cost of living, the burden will be severely felt, especially by the working classes, who will have to pay a considerably larger increase than that de- manded by the Government. Why this must be so will readily be seen when it is remembered that Chinese tenement houses are generally let at a lump sum "taxes included." The landlords will naturally increase the rent to an amount that will cover the increased taxation and leave a little over for themselves, the tenant will apply the same measure to the sub-tenants to whom he lets out the individual floors, and these again will charge their lodgers higher rates, the result being that a coolie who now pays say $2 a month for his lodging may have to pay $2. At the same time the cost of provisions and rates of wages are increasing, and what with this and the increased taxation the European householder, we fear, may look forward to an increase of not much less than twenty-five per cent. taking place in the cost of living before very long.
The presumed necessity for increased taxation of course arises from the increase in the public expenditure, for which the un- favourable rate at which the colony now has to meet its obligations in gold for ex- change compensation, pensions, and so forth, is in a large measure responsible. And per haps the most galling feature in the situa- tion is that out of every dollar that is raised to meet the deficiency the Imperial Govern- ment will appropriate 173 cents under the name of military contribution. It is becom- ing evident that a charge of 17 per cent. of its gross revenue for military contribution is a burden too heavy for the colony to bear, and if taxation is to go ou increasing consideration will have to be given to the steps that may most effectively be taken to secure a reconsideration of the case at the hands of the Imperial authorities.
[October 7, 1897.
increased taxation, though not actually of the foreign trade of China is done on a decided upon, is believed to be inevitable. sterling basis, exchange being fixed with His Excellency, we need hardly remark, every contract that is entered into. That is not directly responsible for the misfor- fixing of exchange is a cumbrous and un- tunes that have befallen the colony during business-like arrangement that cannot con- his administration. The plague was a tinue indefinitely, but must inevitably be calamity that no one could foresee or, in the exchanged for the simpler one of an actual circumstances under which it fell upon us, currency corresponding to that which forms prevent; but if any future Governor de- the basis on which transactions are entered clares his ignorance of the existence of a into. If the standard coin of Hongkong single insanitary house in the colony we hope were. n gold dollar it would be accepted it will be due to the fact that an insanitary as the standard at all the treaty ports, house cannot be found, and not simply to a prices in all contracts being fixed in Hong- want of acquaintance with the real conditions kong dollars instead of, as at present, silver of the place. Nor can any blame be imputed dollars or tacls at a sterling exchange to the Governor in connection with the diffi- specially arranged in connection with each culties arising from the fall in exchange. transaction. As to the official standard of The only point on which possibly some China, people are rather inclined to scout responsibility for our present misfortunes the idea of change being within measurable, may be held to rest with His Excellency is distance. China, it is argued, moves slowly, that when the settlement of the military and the idea of her adopting a policy of contribution question was under considera-currency reform within the lifetime of any tion he did not, before the decision was a one now living seems almost inconceivable. rived at, claim on behalf of the colony some A change, however, we believe is impend- rebate in respect of purely municipal revenue, ing. China is not only a slow moving instead of allowing the claim to stand over country, but is also a country of anomalies, until the final decision had been announced and it would not be surprising to find her and had become practically irrevocable un-making a partial adoption of the gold stan. less under pressure of something like a con- dard, for the regulation of her foreign trade, stitutional crisis. We hope, however, that while leaving the country generally to its even at this late hour His Excelleney may old time system of barter, which is the be able to do something towards straighten-system that really prevails away from the ing out the colony's finances without having resort to the painful expedient of increased
taxation.
over
great commercial centres. China has now an extensive gold debt secured by the Customs revenue, and the expediency of collecting that revenue in gold can hardly have failed A GOLD STANDARD FOR CHINA. to present itself to the mind of Sir ROBERT :
HART or to the institutions-through which Mr. Ottomar Haupt, who writes the Paris the loans have been contracted. If a letter for the Financial Times, takes a proposition to that effect were made to the gloomy, but, we fear, not too gloomy a Treaty Powers the latter, having them- view of the future of silver. The days selves thrown silver, could not of silver, Mr. HAUPT says, are numbered; well decline to accede. And if China does the price of the metal may recover, it is not do something of the kind she is not true, but no one who has made the question unlikely to find herself in Queer Street at issue his special study will credit it with respect to her gold obligations, with the powers of forming the basis of which would not at all suit the books of her any well-regulated monetary system. Be-creditors. A partial adoption of the gold lieving as we do in the scientific soundness standard by China may therefore take of the bimetallic theory, we are never place. at a comparatively early date, theless constrained to acknowledge that and this colony, if it does not change its Mr. HAUPT is right as a matter of fact and present currency system before that date, that, silver having been kicked out of doors will have to do so then. As there is little by all the leading uations, the metal can prospect of gain and great fear of loss by no longer form the basis of any well pursuing a waiting policy we would suggest regulated monetary system. It is useless that the colony should make the change at now to speculate on what might have
once. We are well aware that such an in- been if the nations had only pursued a portant change could not be carried out different policy; we have to deal with without temporarily influencing adversely accomplished facts, and the practical ques various important interests, and opposition tion for us in Hongkong is whether our from the representatives of those interests interests would not be best served by boldly must be expected, but the change would, we adopting the gold standard. The Com- believe, be to the advantage of the colony as mittee of the Chamber of Commerce has
a whole, and, ultimately, of the particular quite recently answered that question in interests that might for a time suffer by it. the negative, holding that the colony If it be true that silver has lost the power of is commercially so closely allied with forming the basis of any well regulated China that it could not safely break monetary system, and if it be also true that away from her on the currency question. the absence of a well regulated monetary mercial prosperity, it follows that the best thing Hongkong or any other colony or country can do is to fall into line with the rest of the world and adopt a currency that will receive universal acknowledgment as a measure of values in commercial transactions.
It must be rather exasperating to the Governor, on the eve of his retirement from the administration, to have to propose an increase in taxation, especially if His Excel- lency recalls the glowing prospects he held out in 1892 ou the occasion of the presentation of diplomas to the students of the Hongkong College of Medicine for Chinese. That institution was an applicant for financial assistance on the part of the Goverument, and His Excellency held out hopes that the public finances would soon be brought into such a condition as would justify compliance with the application. In every colony in which he had been, His Excellency said, he had been so extremely unfortunate as to arrive during a financial crisis, but in previous We believe, however, that there is cousi-system is prejudicial to a country's com- cases he had left them in easy circum-derable wavering on the subject amongst the stances, and he expressed his
trust mercantile community, and that the answer that by economy and good government recently returned by the Committee of the he might before he left "these charm Chamber of Commerce to the Singapore ing shores of Hongkong" be in a posi- Chamber was founded more on the principle tion to announce that the endowment that it is safer on the part of a public body of the College of Medicine had been granted not to commit itself prematurely to a de- by a willing Legislative Council. At the claration in favour of fundamental changes dinner in the evening His Excellency again than on any strong conviction in the minds It seems to us that the spoke in a similar strain and anticipated of the members. that he would in a few months be able to change of standard will sooner or later be- show a permanent saving of $60,000 a year. come inevitable and that it resolves itself So far from those anticipations having been merely into a question of whether Hong fulfilled the cost of administration has kong will lead or follow China in the mat
ter, whether it will playthe part of the head or the tail. Already practically the whole
gone
on steadily increasing and the strain has now become so great that
The vessel now being constructed at the Mit- su Bishi Dockyard at Nagasaki for the Nippon Yusen Kaisha is of 6,000 tons displacement. The steamer is expected to be launched at the end of October and will be named the Hidachi- maru. Immediately after its completion a similar vessel, to be named the Shinano-maru, will be laid down. The Hidachi-maru is the largest steamer that has yet been built by Japanese-Nagasaki Press,