242
THE PROPOSED DUTY ON LIQUOR,
a
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
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[September 18, 1909,
present cost to the consumer. True, many | of course, likin, and now and then from obstacles to smuggling are imposed by Peking we hear the far-off thunder of the the Bill. Ships are required to de- contest. elare their imports of intoxicating The Government of the Regency is by no (Daily Press, September 13th.)
liquors. A ship's manifest, His Ex-
means so blind to the ill-effects of the When explaining the Bill" to provide for CELLENCY said, shows all liquor on board,ystem at large, and more especially to its the collection of duties upon Intoxicating and there is already a legal remedy agains! hampering results, so far as the Imperial Liquors" which was introduced in the anyone who imports liquors disguised as
prerogative is concerned, as many, or indeed Legislative Council last Friday HIS EXCEL-any other wares. But what is there against most of our would-be authorities on Chinese
affairs would have
That LENCY the Governor said it was a sincere liquors being manifested as "provisions,
us believe, attempt to give effect to the wishes of the SI long as the freight for liquors has been Government is, however, remiuded daily of community as they are represented by the aid? And what about import by junk? It the enormous difficulty of the task that any unofficial members of the community. In is worth pointing out in this connection attempted interference would entail. One that the Bil, we fear, fails, and we are not that the import duty on wines and spirits of the worst features of the case is that no- surprised that two unofficial members of into China ranges from 9 candareeds per one, even of those most intimately associat the Council took the earli st opportunity of imperial gallon (on rum and gin) to only 3 ed with the collection, has the slightest letting it be known that the propos Is of mace per case on whisky and 5 mace o
knowledge either of the amount collected, the Government do not meet with their ap brandy; so that, unless we have a fairly large
nor of the cost of collection. The Provincial proval, inasmuch as they go much beyond preventive service, a surreptitious import authorities are in this little better off than what they had contemplated when they re.trade in wines and spirits from Canton and Peking; the collectors hold no official rank, commended the imposition of a duty on all other coast ports is likely to develop. and have no place in the official hierarchy, Foreign and Chinese liquors imported and We can quite understand the Govern- and are subjected to no official control, the consumed in the Colony. The Bill, provid- ment's reasons for wishing to rush this Bill whole system being one of contract and sub- ing as it does for the institution of through the Council, but, at the same time, contract, down to the lowest coolie on the Customs service, drives the wedge well having regard to the important bearing the look-out for passing boate, or told off to into the traditional freedom of the Ordinance would have on the whole shipping watch the cultivator bringing in on his back port. As we remarked when the recom- business of the port, the government ought to the nearest village the produce of his mendations of the Unofficial Members were to afford the community a reasonable time small patch of garden ground. No provin- published, they were absolutely silent as to to censider the manifold possibilities of cial official however, will interfere with the the means of collecting the impor duty recom-
int rferences with trade which it is feared likin collectorate; to do so, he finds, would mended. It is clear from the briefremarks may arise under the provisions of the Bill.be to quarrel with his own bread and butter, made at the Council meeting by the Hon. Mr. One more of servation may be made
tor although he gets nothing directly, it is STEWART that the unofficial members did not. The community would have been glad of an
the likin that pays for the gunboats and share the view that the taxation of all explanation of the need for imposing a rate of crews in the next creek, and they const tute alcoholic liquors consumed in the Colony duty which the Hon. Mr. HEWETT calculates as a rule the only guard and protection that involved the in-titution of a Customs ser- will yield a million dollars net per annum. be has in case of need. The gunboats, though vice, from which this port, to its undoubted By the new schedule, of license fees, which under the orders of the Magistrate, know advantage, has heretofore ben free.. H.E. has now been abandoued, the Government well that it is useless to look to him for the GOVERNOR explained that he had con-expected to get an addition of only payment of their wages, so are flevoted to aid red certain alternative suggestions- two and a half
lakhs of dollars. he likin. Then in each province the likin including one outlined by a correspondent|| Can * one million dllars really be collectors and their satellites, all living on in our columns, by which it was required needed in addition to the increased yield the vitals of the land, number their thou- that liquor shoull be sold only in vessel nticipated from the new stamp duties, and sands, often their tens of thousands, all of bearing a revenue label which would have the substantial contribution" towards the
whom are bound by the strongest bouds of to be broken in order to extract the liquor. loss of revenue from opium which the common interest to support one another. Certain objections to this scheme appeared Colony is expecting to receive from the Im- There is thus in every province in China an on investigation, and it was shelved. There perial Government,-to say nothing of the
imperium in imperio, whose interests áre was, however, another scheme outlined in savings which have been effected in expendistinct from, and generally opposite to, the "Daily Press" of the same date, whereby iture owing to the labours of the Retrench- these of the government, be it metropolitan whatever tax was impose here could be ment Committee ? On this point, as well as
or provincial. This imperium for the most collected at the port of export. It did not on the larger aspects of the measure part is master of the only armed police force appear from the GOVERNOR's speech that it is desirable that the community should n the district, and is accustomed to use it this scheme also had been considered. The be fully consult d. As the Government
when there is any disposition shown on the more this scheme is examined the more hope to pass the measure next Thursday part of the traders of the district to grumble practical it appears, so far as the collection there is no time to be lost by the unofficial at the amount of the fees extracted. of duties is concerned, but the weak point members in ascertaining the opinions over, there is no settled tariff. The holder of about it, we conceive, is that there is little of the community on the measure with a
each collecting post has had to pay before possibility of the money being remitted view to securing such alternations in the appointment a heavy sum down, and has to with the necessary promptitude when it has Bill as are deemed necessary or desirable.
recoup himself as best he can for his own to be sent by Consuls in various ports of the
expenses, and the expenses of all those who world to the Imperial Government, and by the
consider themselves entitled to live off him, latter to the Hongkong Treasury. The com-
which with the peculiar family ideas of the munity will continue to hope that the Govern-
Chinese in such cases is no light matter, as (Daily Press, September 14th.) mentev nyetmay find a way to get the revenue
We have not, as yet, at all events, seen each ne'er-do-well of the family, however they waut from alcoholic liquors without
cause to alter our expressed conviction that remotely connected, conceives himself of Unfortunately making so important a change in the the government of the Regency is sincerely right entitled to support. character of the port as the institution of a desirous of introducing a thorough reform Chinese public opinion here is always on the Customs service" implies. We note th
of the fiscal system of China; it, however, side of the useles hanger-on. promise that it will be the smallest possible at the beginning, seems to have entirely preventive service, that the powers of
under-estimated the power of the reactionary search will be the minimum necessary, forces, which its well-meant efforts to clear and that the stringency with which the the den of corruptions have brought into search is prosecuted will entirely depend prominence once more. The difficulty is the upon the co-operation of the firms in the
same in kind, though fortunately not in Colony with the Governm nt in prevent-egree, as in September, 1898, followed on ing smuggling, if they cannot do it alone. At the same time the fact must not be over looked that the duties are so high as to make the smuggling of spirits a hy no means unprofitable ocupation for the class of trader with an inclination to smuggle, for a duty of $6.40 per case on whisky, plus the chrge incurred by storage in the King's warehouseand the other small charges incidental to obtaining delivery there from, adds roughly 50 per cent. to the cost, while in the case of gin it more than doubles the
FINANCIAL REFORM IN CHINA.
the expulsion from the Palace of the arch- traitor L HUNG CHANG; when the discredit- ed EMPRESS DOWAGER TSE HI, furious at the attempts of her recently emancipated, protegé to act on his own initiative, con signed him to an ignominious impr sonment, which lasted through the remainder of his unhappy life, and only ended with his myst rious death the day before that of his implacable persecutrix. Foremost in the list of the financial blunders which are keep ing China still at the tail-end of the race, is,
More-
How wasteful such a system may become, we have an instance in the taking over of certain native Customs stations by the Imperial Maritime Customs in 1901. A small establishment at Santuao in Fukien, a petty trading place whose principal market town was the city of Funing-fu, employed a staff of little short of 600 individuals, and returned as its collection 9.000 taels per annum, beside, as a solatium, the holder paid an insignificant sum of 2,000 more taels to certain provincial officials. Without raising the charges in any way, and simply by keep- ing proper accounts, and reducing the staff to sixty, afterwards found more than suffi- cient for the work, at the end of the first year, a sum of Taels 61,262, was actually remitted. True, this was not the likin but the Native Customs; it is, however, well-