CO129-492 - Governor Sir Clementi - 1925 [12] - 1926 [1-5] — Page 551

533

"

9.

Having thus answered the Foreign Office questions so far as I can, I feel it to be my duty to lay before you certain other general considerations with respect to this matter, based upon the assumption that the object of the Tariff Conference at Peking is twofold,namely to facilitate foreign trade by the abolition of likin and to strengthen the Chinese Goverment by enabling it to raise a larger revenue.

10.

Likin was originally levied to meet the additional expenditure thrown upon the Chinese Government by the Taiping Rebellion. It was first imposed in 1853 upon goods in transit from one provines to mother or from one district to another in the same province; but in 1861, when the Taiping and Muslim Rebellions were simultaneously in progress, the tax was extended to all large toms. Likin barriers now exist along all the main routes of commerce, both by land and water, sometimes at intervals of 20 miles or even less. Efforts to get rid of likin have been made

ever since the suppression of the Taiping and Muslim Rebellions;

but, having been very familiar with this subject ever since

I first know China, I venture to express the opinion that this generation is as little likely to see the effective suppression of likin as it is to see the effective suppression of poppy-growing and of opium-smoking in China. As regards the Kuang-tang province in particular, Colonel F. Hayley Ball, the Commissioner of Customs at Canton, tells me that the present Canton authorities are unlikely to forego the collection of likin and that they are even making the collection of this tax more severe. Any substantial concessions to China

an increase of, in the matter of/the Customs tariff are, therefore, unlikely

to be set off by an effectual abolition of likin.

11.

In the next place, it must be remembered

that every appreciable increase in Chinese Customs duties is a direct incentive to the remarkable ingenuity of Chinese smugglera. At present, the Customs duties being low, it is

hardly