80
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
[July 22, 1907.
CHINA TEA AND PREFERENCE. | liquors or tobacco have been looked upon as | alienophobic. It is rarely that their con-
either in themselves injurious, or as matters of luxury have no cause of complaint if we tax them higher. But all these are equally sins against the gospel of Free Trade, so that if we pass them by, we make the tacit acknowledgement that after all Free-Trade is but a matter of adjustment and, leaving the abstract, we are justified in making terms with what our reasoning has led us to hold is mortal sin.
(Daily Press, 13th July). The proposition from H not over wise member of the Tariff Reform party to reduce the duty on teas imported from British possessions led to the not unnatural retort from Mr. ASQUITH that, seeing that British teas without any preferential duty had already practically ousted China teas from the home markets, and were rapidly gaining possession of the chief foreign
It is equally capable of proof that the markets, including Russia, they hardly part al readjustment of taxes between represented an argument in favour of peoples closely allied by policy or sentiment preferential tariffs. Of course Mr. ASQUITH, is capable of being utilised in the public being a Chancellor of the Exchequer, and interest. At one time England, Scotland being deeply committed to the pretended and Ireland had each their separate tariffs, Free-Trade party, was quite unable to see and 80 late a8 the 18th century that in reality the transfer of the Tea Trade
we find GEORGE 11. declaring he had from Chinese to British hands was one of no intention of removing the dig the strongest arguments against the happy-abilities on Irish made goods in English go-lucky school which would view with indifference the transfer of British in- dustries to our trade rivals. As a fact, as all those who have had personal experience of the case are aware, the transfer of the tea producing business from Chica to British India and Ceylon was altogether brought about by preferential duties, and. | still more 10 The pint, in the present condition of British trade generally, the preference in favour of India proceeded from the wrong-hended act on of the Chinese Government. who in the face of warnings to the contrary would proceed in its suicidal policy of levying duties on the export; and not only did this itself but backed up the provincials in imposing growers' taxes, so that actually the trade wes strangled to death, while, of course, the Indian producer had none but the ordinary taxes of the country to pay. Although, then, he enjoyed in the British Islands no preference, and had nothing more to pay in the way of duty than his Chinese competitor, the action of the Chinese Government was practically preferential inasmuch as it encouraged protection, and that protection of the worst character for a nation to adopt, namely the protection of outsiders against ifself. This, however, is the policy to which the present home Government has irrevocably committed itself under the pseudonym of Free-Trade. Its applica- tion, under methods the exact converse in many respects of Chinese protection of the Indian tea trade, in no respect alters the terms of the problem. In point of fact, while we ourselves rightly would not touch the unclean beast of pro- tection with one of our fingers, by holding out inducements to our competitors to glut our markets with bounty fed goods, we are really giving our support to protection in its very worst shape, that of helping on by our connivance the flooding of our home markets with goods, whose sole existence is due to the very same financial sin against which we hyp critically turn up our financially pious eyes, and utter sentimental homilies. The policy of pre- ferential trade with the Colonies stands, of course, on very different grounds, which are those of political experience. Logically Free-Trade is the best of ideal positions; every burden which an article has to bear of course lessens its capacity for consuinp- tion. But all nations in every stage of progress have found demands of revenue cropping up and necessitating some levy, Logically, again, all goods should be equally taxed, so as to insure that each c mmolity should go out into the world on equal font. ing; but here again the common practice of the world has come to the conclusion that all commodities do not demand or deserve equal treatment. For instance intoxicating
our
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cocters seen able to realize, or to make their reiders realize, what war reilly involves. If they did that, they might provide the antidote for their own poison. Mr. T. FISHER UNWIN has published a book called Armageddoa, translated from the German, which seems to us to do this. It is a thrilling story, with much in it that we would rather not have seen printed, but at the same time it should leave the average Jingo who reads it less inclined for fight than he was. Admira FREMANTLE has written nu introduction in which he very properly points out the superiorities of this narrative to the rest of its class. The anonymous author causes war to break out in a way that has recently had a curiously close coincidence. Trouble at Apia led to the landing of a naval forcel without the consent of the German go, vernor, very much in the way that an American force was landed at Jamaica, contrary to the wishes of Governor SWETTENHAM. In the story, the American ship, seeing Eugland embroiled, steamed away without insisting upon landing ita men, and the suggestion of the German writer is that America deliberately sought and intrigued for such an outcome, for its own advantage. Admiral FREMANTLÉ considers it unjust to cast America for the part of Mephistopheles, and says it is
blot upon the book, "for though
markets. By and by, under the influence of preferential iden, it was conceived that it might be advantageous to remove these internal duties, and let goods circulate more freely. By a certain interested clique the wrking man of the day was taught to believe this was equivalent to taxing his fond. But slowly common sense prevailed, and even Mr. REDMOND and his irrecon- cileubles would hardly urge the restoration of the duties. About sixty years ago some German statesmen advocated the establish ment of a Z-llverein and the reduction or decrease of duties between different coun tries of what is now the German Empire. Of course the pseudo-free-traders of the day ob- jected. The tariff-reformers of the day, bow-tical_relations. ever, triumphed; and this was eventually one of the chief causes of the foundation of the Germau Empire. History, then, tells us that however blessed may be the doctrine of Free-traile, there may be something more boly still, and that is the amalgamation of Empire. Our Colonial Premiers who had learnt the lesson amidst hard experience and who have just succeeded in their own allotted tasks of empire-building, were anxious to impart their good tidings to His Majesty's home advisers; who wise in their short little England conceit rejected it as heresy against the Cobden Club. That is the lesson the people of Great Britain have, under their present teachers, forced upon them. Fortunately sense, after being absent for a little while, is returning, but the struggle of the dawn is hard, and needs our best efforts; and this is what the best of our Colonial statesmen have set themselves to do. A more useful lesson in the results of an unhealthy tariff than the transfer of the tea-trade from China to India could hardly have been found. True, England blundered into a good thing without at all understanding it, but it is time that she shoul! learn to recognise that like China she is encouraging against herself her keenest competitors, aŭd like China, she may also one day wake up and find that while she was indifferent her competitors had quietly stolen away her industries.
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WAR BOOKS.
(Daily Press, July 15th.) We have previously given our opinion of the mischievous rubbish that is printed in a certain class of political fiction-those stories that deal with hypothetical wars between friendly powers, and forecast their results. Sometimes they are written to emphasise the arguments of those who are anxious to prove the necessity of augment- ing the army or navy of their respective countries, in which case as a story they are usually somewhat dull. At other times they are merely sensational or viciously
our American cousins are certainly cute enough, they have never shown themselves dishonourable in their poli- There are other blots on the book he has failed to note, such as the ignoble part the French soldiers aud sailors are made to play in the fighting. For after the first shots, France joins England, followed by Portugal and Spain, while Germany has the assistance of Austria and Italy. Russia, Japan and America sit on the fence and subsequently reap all the spoils of battle. The Kilkenny business is brought to an end in a curious yellow peril way, the writer picturing a pan- Asiatic league and simultaneous risings and massacres in Africu, India, and China, 80 that an armistice is arranged at the instance of the KAISER, while the united enemies march to fight the new peril and rescue their friends. Describing events in Ch na, the author says: "Such events were the punishment of pious belief in the lies of those who had said that the religion of Love was able to modify the wild instincts of the Mongolian race. It was demonstrated that conversion among the Chinese had been only an external act, and that the water of
baptism had not been able to alter in a day the racial character imprinted by centuries.” While the unpoverished and enfeebled allies were setting these waters right, Russia size the Persiau port of Bauder-Abbas, and America sest England an ultimatum to withdraw all her garrisons from her colonial possessions in the West. In lies. from Jamaica, the Bahamas, British Honduras, and British Guiana. All these political changes and redistributions, however, are less convincing than the author's word pictures of war and its realities, and these are the parts that justify the whole. If every Californian Jingo and every Japanese Jugo could be made to digest these vivid passages, the present situation would soon be less strained than it seems to be.
The Minister of War at Paking has drawn the attention of the Grument to the bad
repair of the roads in the empire and he has asked that ins'ractions be given to the vicerʊys and governors to have the roads made good so as to facilitate the movement of troops.