Directory_and_Chronicle_1892 — Page 112

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TRADE REGULATIONS BETWEEN FRANCE AND CHINA

Under these conditions, no new duties will be levied at the interior barriers or lekin stations.

Merchandise for which transit passes have not been obtained will be liable to all the barrier and lekin duties imposed upon indigenous products in the interior of the country.

Art. VII.-Merchandise bought by Frenchmen and persons under French protection in the interior markets of China may be brought into the open places on the frontier, for the purpose of being from thence exported to Tonkin, under the conditions fixed by Rule VII. annexed to the Treaty of the 27th June, 1858, with regard to the transit of merchandise for export.

When Chinese merchandise for export arrives at these places, declaration shall be made at the Custom House as to the nature and quantity of the merchandise, as well as the name of the person accompanying it.

The Customs authorities will proceed to verification.

Such of this merc' andise as shall have been bought in the interior by a merchant furnished with a transit pass, and which consequently has not paid any lekin or barrier duty, shall in the first place pay the transit duty fixed by the general tariff of the Chinese Maritime Customs.

It shall then pay the export duty diminished by one-third. Articles not named in the tariff will remain subject to the duty of 5 per cent. ad valorem.

After payment of these duties the merchandise will be allowed to pass free, and to be sent beyond the frontier.

The merchant who, not being furnished with a transit pass, has bought goods in the interior, shall pay the duties levied at the barriers and lekin stations; receipts shall be delivered to him, and on arriving at the Custon House be shall be exempted from payment of the transit dues on presentation of these receipts.

French merchants and persons under French protection importing or exporting merchandise through the Customs offices on the frontiers of Yunnan and Kwangsi, and Chinese merchants importing or exporting merchandise to or from Tonkin, will not have to pay any toll on their carriages or beasts of burden. On the navigable water-courses on the frontier, vessels may, on the one side and the other, be subjected to the payment of tonnage-dues, conformably to the rules of the Maritime Customs of the two countries.

As regards the provisions of the present article and the preceding one, it is agreed by the high contracting parties that if a new customs tariff should be established by common accord between China and a third Power, for trade by land on the south-western frontiers of the Chinese Empire, France shall obtain the application of it.

Art. VIII.-Foreign merchandise which, not having been sold within a period of thirty-six months after having paid the import duty at one of the Chinese frontier Customs stations, is forwarded to the other frontier Customs station, shall be examined at the first of these stations, and if the wrappings are found intact, and if nothing has been disturbed or changed, a certificate of exemption for the amount of the first duty collected will be given. The bearer of this certificate will deliver it to the other frontier station, in payment of the new duty which he will have to pay. The Customs may in like manner give bonds which will be available for payment of duties at the Custom House by which they are issued any time within three years. Money will never be returned.

If the same merchandise is re-despatched to one of the open ports of China, it will there, conformably to the general rules of the Chinese Maritime Customs, be subjected to payment of the import duties, and the certificates or bonds given at the frontier Customs shall not there be made use of. Neither will it be allowed to present there, in payment of duties, the quittances delivered by the frontier Customs on the first payment. As to transit dues, conformably to the rules in force at the open ports, when once they have been paid, bonds or exemption certificates will never be given in respect of these.