APPENDIX (D).
PROPOSED TAX
ON LOCAL
MANUFACTURES.
156
SIR,
Shanghai Chamber of Commerce to the Foreign Ministers.
General Chamber of Commerce,
Shanghai, 27th August, 1896.
I have the honour to enclose Copy of a Memorial from the Tsungli Yamên to the Throne, published in Foreign and Native newspapers, and am desired by the Committee of this Chamber to ask your Excellency's attention to the suggested scheme for taxation of Silk Filature Factories and Cotton Mills. The Memorial is very definite; it clearly proposes that in order to "supplement Likin" and such-like taxation (which charges are increasing every season and are higher now than ever), the production of "Cotton Manufacture and Silk Filature" by machinery shall pay double the duty of 5 per cent. prescribed in the case of Foreign Exports" -- this amounts to a duty of 10 per cent. "Hereafter, whatever may be their destination, all goods will be exempt from Likin."
The proposal as it affects Cotton Mills (notwithstanding that it frees from Likin goods to be sent into the interior) is very severe. The Chamber, however, defer dealing with that point pending further information from the owners of Cotton Mills now under construction, and in the meantime I am to ask Your Excellency to protest against the proposal. The urgency of attention to the memorial alluded to is in respect to Silk Filatures which are in a different position to Cotton Mills, seeing their production is solely for export to Europe and the United States.
The proposal to charge 10 per cent. ad valorem on Silk Filatures simply means 7 per cent. to 8⅓ per cent. additional Export Duty, as the present duties of Tls. 10 per picul on White Silk, Tls. 7 on Yellow, and Tls. 5 on Tussahs practically range from rather over 2½ per cent. to 3 per cent. on their respective values.
The Chamber submits to Your Excellency that this additional taxation will have a ...