exposures as the present should do much to clear the "smuggling depot" of the which reputation which has been accorded to it by persons in high office and account for the falling off in the last year's Revenue.
27. Extracts from the manuscript digest giving the rates of Customs duties and regulations of the Awang Lung Hopps forms the subject of Enclosure 14. This well-estimated manuscript is quite a curio and shows that the trader who used it knew his business.
It commences by stating the additional charges on the proper Customs dues and carefully details what these Charges are. There is then a table constructed to show how much a rate of duty of, say, 2 mace nominally really is, and also how much real duty a case at 2 mace nominally must pay and so on up to 10 mace or taels. It will be observed that as the series of rates ascend, the ratio between the nominal rates and the real rates diminishes, and that is accounted for by the fact that several of the Charges are constant, whatever may be the rate of duty.
I have selected at random a number of common commodities and placed opposite them their tariffs and prices.