13
of their ultimate destination.
decide eventually to send them
They may
anle
China
to Siam or to Japan, and they would probably
prefer in the first place to make use of free
port facilities for the greater part of Hong Kong's
imports countries other than China. On the
other hand, the difficulty of controlling the
free port area obviously increases contigue voly
with its size, and if it was necessary to supply
ample facilities of that kind the result might
be to have a Customs barrier through the middle
of Hong Kong itself. This is of course precisely
the kind of question which only local experience
can deal with.
(b) Mr. Young's point about the burden of
import duties on Hong Kong consumers being offset
by the reduced taxes in other forms has some
theoretical applicability, but there are two
difficulties.
First, the people who lose by
Jen
newtaxes are not really quite the same as the
people who gain by the remission of old ones.
Secondly, what was chiefly in mind in the
not
Colonial Office meat was the burden of protective
nor
duties
revenue duties.
The Chine tariff is
becoming increasingly protective, and a tariff
proposed for the protection of some Chinese
industry might very well have most unpleasant
effects in putting up the price of some raw
material of importance to Hong Kong.
(c) Mr. Young rather suggests that the Chinese
coastal trading is not worth troubling much
hait
about. If so, then the case for a Customs
union vanishes.
We, however, are inclined to
think