Directory_and_Chronicle_1931 — Page 155

TREATY BETWEEN CHINA AND JAPAN

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Art. VI.-Japanese subjects may travel, for their pleasure or for purpose of trade, to all parts of the interior of China, under passports issued by Japanese Consuls and countersigned by the local authorities. These passports, if demanded, must be produced for examination in the localities passed through. If the passports be not irregular, the bearers will be allowed to proceed and no opposition shall be offered to their hiring of persons, animals, carts or vessels for their own conveyance or for the carriage of their personal effects or merchandise. If they be without

If they be without passports or if they commit any offence against the law, they shall be handed over to the nearest Consul for punishment, but they shall only be subject to necessary restraint and in no case to ill-usage. Such passports shall remain in force for a period of 13 Chinese months from the date of issue. Any Japanese subject travelling in the interior without a passport shall be liable to a fine not exceeding 300 Taels. Japanese sub- jects may, however, without passports go on excursions from any of the ports open to trade, to a distance not exceeding 100 Chinese li and for a period not exceeding five days. The provisions of this article do not apply to crews of ships.

Art. VII.-Japanese subjects residing in the open ports of China may take into their service Chinese subjects and employ them in any lawful capacity without restraint or hindrance from the Chinese Government or authorities.

Art. VIII.-Japanese subjects may hire whatever boats they please for the conveyance of cargo or passengers and the sum to be paid for such boats shall be settled between the parties themselves, without the interference of the Chinese Government or officers. No limit shall be put upon the number of boats, neither shall a monopoly, in respect either of the boats or of the porters or coolies engaged in carrying goods, be granted to any parties. If any smuggling takes place in them the offenders will, of course, be punished according to law.

Art. IX. The Tariffs and Tariff Rules now in force between China and the Western Powers shall be applicable to all articles upon importation into China by Japanese subjects or from Japan, or upon exportation from China by Japanese subjects or to Japan. It is clearly understood that all articles, the importation or exportation of which is not expressly limited or prohibited by the Tariffs and Tariff Rules existing between China and the Western Powers, may be freely imported into and exported from China, subject only to the payment of the stipulated import or export duties. But in no case shall Japanese subjects be called upon to pay in China other or higher import or export duties than are or may be paid by the subjects or citizens of the most favoured nation; nor shall any article imported into China from Japan or exported from China to Japan, be charged upon such importation or exportation, other or higher duties than are now or may hereafter be imposed in China on the like article when imported from or exported to the nation most favoured in those respects.

Art. X.-All articles duly imported into China by Japanese subjects or from Japan shall, while being transported, subject to the existing Regulations, from one open port to another, be wholly exempt from all taxes, imposts, duties, lekin, charges and exactions of every nature and kind whatsoever, irrespective of the nationality of the owner or possessor of the articles, or the nationality of the conveyance or vessel in which the transportation is made.

Art. XI.-It shall be at the option of any Japanese subject desiring to convey duly imported articles to an inland market, to clear his goods of all transit duties by payment of a commutation transit tax or duty, equal to one-half of the import duty in respect of dutiable articles, and two and a half per cent. upon the value in respect of duty-free articles; and on payment thereof a certificate shall be issued which shall exempt the goods from all further inland charges whatsoever.

It is understood that this Article does not apply to imported Opium. Art. XII.-All Chinese goods and produce purchased by Japanese subjects in China elsewhere than at an open port thereof and intended for export abroad, shall in every part of China be freed from all taxes, imposts, duties, lekin, charges and exactions of every nature and kind whatsoever, saving only export duties when exported, upon the payment of a commutation transit tax or duty calculated at the