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Under the head of "Inland Transit," Mr. ROCHER, Commissioner of Customs
at Canton, in his report on the trade of that port for 1892, writes:—
"INLAND TRANSIT.
---or
แ As has already been observed, this most promising trade ceased completely in July.
Thus, from January to July, 1892 there were issued 492 transit passes, representing a value of Hk. Tls. 406,696, showing, as compared with the figures for 1891, the enormous decrease of 1,454 passes-value, Hk. Tls. 1,335,168,- 76.65 per cent. To the extinction of this trade is inainly attributable the decline evidenced in the table of Imports, and this falling off is likely to be still more marked in 1893. The transit trade can well support additional taxation in exchange for greater facilities and privileges, and if an agreement could be made whereby a lekin duty was payable on entry simultaneously with the import duty, thus freeing foreign imports from all further taxation--as is now the case with opium, such an arrangement would conciliate both the interests of trade and the exigencies of the provincial revenue, and prove a great boon towards the expansion of foreign commerce.'
Striking testimony to the value of the trade under transit passes, when not obstructed by officials, is afforded in the reports of the Customs Commissioners at Mengtsz. Mr. A. P. HAPPER, Jun., in his report for the year 1892, says :---
"INLAND TRANSIT.
"(a) Inwards.-We are proud of the absorbing capacity of this branch of the transit trade. In taking stock at the end of the third complete year since this office was opened, it looks as if the transit merchants had made a deliberate compact with the import firms to distribute for them through the province four- fifths, no less and no more, of the goods they brought into the port; and they have stood faithfully by the engagement, for during the years 1890, 1891, and 1892 the transit passes issued to them have covered merchandise to the value of 81, 82, and 82 per cent, respectively of the total value of foreign and native imports entered at the Custom House during those three years. Nearly a million taels was the value of the inward transit trade in 1892: in exact figures, Hk. Tls. The number 950,908, against Hk. Tls. 738,419 in 1891-a gain of 28 per cent.
be
of passes issued (16,950, against 14,075) and the increasing number of places (66 administrative cities and 26 market towns and salt-wells in the province of Yunnan) to which goods were distributed are further proofs of its flourishing state. As a new trophy in name, for the value of goods taken is small, it may added that two cities in the province of Kweicbow appear in our table of destina- tions for the first time, thus enrolling a third province among the purchasers of our imports."
Mr. F. A. CARL in his annual report for 1894, for the same place, records further progress as below:-
"INLAND TRANSIT.
“(a) Inwards.-The value of goods sent into the interior under transit passes amounted to Hk. Tls. 1,146,534, or a little more than 92 per cent. of the quantity imported. The per-centages of the previous four years averaged 82, and it is satis- factory to note the present increase, as the welfare of the Mengtsz Customs is almost wrapped up in transit privileges, the advantages obtained from the use of passes counterbalancing any gains derived from smuggling. Import duty and transit dues paid are less than the usual lekin charges, and as our passes are everywhere respected throughout the province, there is little inducement to smuggle imports. The number of passes issued during the year was 22,316, against 20,874 in 1893 and 16,950 in 1892. These covered goods bound to 73 administrative cities and 53 market towns and salt-wells in the province of Yunnan, three cities and two market places in Szechwan, one city in Hunan, and one in Chehkiang--a total of 133 places drawing on Mengtsz for supplies.”
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