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On the 18th September Comrade Ch'en wrote an official
letter to confirm the statement" which he had made to
Mr. Brenan on the previous day. The text of this
letter was telegraphed to the Foreign Office by Mr.
Brenan on the 18th September and it was published on
the afternoon of the 20th September. It was not quite
in the form which might have been expected from Mr.
Brenan's report of the interview of the 17th Septem-
ber. It reads as follows:- "I have the honour to
confirm the statement made to you yesterday that
arrangements have been made to end the boycott on or before October 19th (most probably at the end of September) and that the proper Chinese authorities
will levy a special consumption tax of 2 per cent on
ordinary imports and 5 per cent on imported luxuries
together with a special production or producers' tax
on exports. It is proposed to calculate the new
rates on Customs Memo. and to arrange for the Customs authorities to clear papers only on production of
vouchers verifying payment of such new special taxes.
I have to add that the arrangements referred to have
been made with the Strike Committee. 留 This letter
did not in any way make the cessation of the boycott
conditional on our raising no objection to the new
taxes. It left this to be inferred from the fact that
these otherwise disconnected matters were embodied in
the same sentence of a short letter and from the fact
that this letter was written "to confirm the statement"
made at the interview of the preceding day.
4.
The immediate objects with which Comrade
Ch'ên wrote this letter wore clearly to gain time and
to
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