CO129-362 - Public Offices - 1909 — Page 338

[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]

336

2

have been taken to replace it with another currency. This has led to a state of confusion in all financial transactions, to the detriment of trade.

On the 18th instant a special meeting of members of this chamber was held, and a long resolution was adopted demanding that the debased sycee shall be recalled, replaced, and remelted, and that an efficient control of all sycee melted in future should be maintained. I have the honour to send you, under separate cover, copies of correspondence and of the minutes of the meeting referred to.*

My committee was instructed to seek your co-operation, and I feel sure that in laying the facts before your committee we may confidently rely on your assistance. I trust you will be able to make representations to the Foreign Office urging that the long-promised reform of the currency be carried into effect.

I have, &c.

* Not printed.

W. E. SOUTHCOTT, Chairman,

CHINA TRADE.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[30635]

C.O 9353

[August 14.]

SECTION 1.

? SEP OC

No. 1.

Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received August 14.)

(No. 265.) Sir,

Peking, July 21, 1909. AFTER it was seen that the provisional rules for exemption certificates for duty-paid goods on the Shanghae-Nanking Railway, the issue of which was reported in my despatch No. 568 of the 21st December, 1908, were in practical operation, the question of the li-kin charges on rail-borne traffic was taken in hand with the object of removing the existing discrimination in favour of goods transported inland by waterways from Shanghae. I was aware that the subject had been under the consideration of the Board of Communications for some months, and that a new tariff had been elaborated, the exact nature of which was communicated for the first time to Mr. Bland by his Excellency Liang Shih-yi in a letter of the 5th March. Before this reached me I had, however, addressed a note of the 8th March to the Wai-wu Pu reminding them that it was over a year since I had drawn attention to the irregular levy of li-kin on the railway in contravention of the letter and spirit of the loan agreement (article 14), and requesting that the necessary steps should be taken without further delay to remove the disadvantages under which the railway traffic was labouring.

The information at my disposal did not enable either Mr. Bland or myself to judge whether Mr. Liang's proposed new tariff, which was the result of much discussion between the various provincial authorities concerned, was a solution of the question. There was nothing to show that the li-kin duties were sufficiently reduced to remove the complaint of discrimination, and I thought it necessary before proceeding further to obtain the opinion of Mr. Pope, the general manager of the railway, who has studied the matter at close quarters.

The Wai-wu Pu's reply of the 15th March told me explicitly that the effect of the new schedule was to tax rail-borne goods more lightly than the water-borne, and that the terms of the loan agreement were fulfilled thereby, but Mr. Pope's observa- tions led me to discuss the point further with the Wai-wu Pu, and on the 29th March I wrote again to Prince Ching expressing doubts as to whether the new proposals would really reduce the land tariff as compared with the river or canal tariff of li-kin dues, and suggesting that the best way to avoid discrimination was to make the hi-kin passes for both routes interchangeable in the matter of rates. I also discussed the question at great length with Mr. Liang Shih-yi, who called on me for the purpose on the 29th March. He assured me that the proposed tariff was lower than that for the water routes, and that he was as anxious as I could be to attract freight to the railways. He had had a strenuous contest for months with the Viceroy and li-kin vested interests, and he pronounced the new duties as the limit of the concessions which the Board of Communications had been able to extract. He was convinced that, if given a trial, much benefit would result to the railway.

I explained that all we wanted was equal rates in reality and not merely in name for both routes, and it seemed to me that this could be best obtained by making the li-kin passes for the waterways and the railway interchangeable. He said that the same idea had occurred to him, but he found that it was not possible in practice. He mentioned some details of procedure in support of this view which were not quite clear to me, and I closed the discussion by assuring him that, although I still did not understand why the passes could not be made interchangeable, I was willing provisionally to give any system a trial which was likely to secure effective equality between the two routes.

On more than one occasion I also pressed the Wai-wu Pu for the issue of local proclamations notifying the public that li-kin would be levied equally on land and water routes, and on the 5th April I received a memorandum from the Ministers stating that the Viceroy of Nanking and the governor of Kiangsu had instructed the li-kin offices of both routes to issue proclamations expressly stating that the land route dues were lower than those on the water routes.

[2396 0----1]