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to another, by rail, shall receive the same fixed treatment as waterborne goods under Treaty regulations.
The Chinese Government allege that likin being levied under varying conditions in different localities, special arrangements for the protection of the likin revenue must be made to suit each railway, and, no doubt, they will put forward the same arguments in the case of the Canton-Kowloon. The question is difficult, and the ground might, I think, be prepared for the consideration of it by a detailed enquiry into the existing likin charges in the territory along the route of the line from the frontier to Canton, but, so far as we are concerned, it only affects foreign goods sent into the interior of China, and foreign-owned native produce on its way from the interior to a Treaty port, which are not protected by transit-passes. It is useful to remember that the difficulty may possibly be settled before the railway is completed through a general acceptance by the Treaty Powers of the provisions of Article VIII of Sir James MacKay's Treaty. The first and only Treaty port on the Canton Kowloon railway being Canton