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243
Extract from letters from Jardine Matheson & Co's representative at Foochow to John Bell-Irving, Hongkong.
Foochow, 12th April, 1887.
"I am having some trouble about Opium, the Chinese up country are endeavouring to evade their Officials' new rules with regard to the collection of Likin by the Customs, first of all by disregarding the label affixed to Opium that has paid the Likin of Tls. 80 per picul demanded by the new Convention, and then by imposing local taxes on the native article, which taxes, by the Convention, immediately become applicable to foreign drug.
I am in communication jointly with Messrs. E.D. Sassoon & Co., with the Br. Mo. Consul and the Commissioner of Customs and hope to be able