Directory_and_Chronicle_1932 — Page 428

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CHINA.

purpose current gold unit exchange rates were published, based on the current world price of gold expressed in silver. This latter arrangement held good throughout the year at all ports with the exception of Shanghai, where, due to the initiative of the Central Bank of China, merchants were soon enabled to pay import duties in gold unit cheques or orders on that bank.

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The Maritime Customs collection for the year 1930 amounted, in round figures, to Hk. Tls. 180,600,000 compiled as follows: import duties Hk. Tls. 135,840,000; export duties, Hk. Tls. 35,540,000; coast trade duties Hk. Tls. 4,040,000; transit dues, Hk. Tls. 2,080,000; and tonnage dues, Hk. Tls. 3,100,000.

TRADE IN 1930.

In his review of the trade for 1930, Mr. H. D. Hilliard, the Statistical Secretary of the Chinese Maritime Customs writes:

"Although unmarked by any event of outstanding importance, the past twelve months have more than maintained for China the promise of the pre- ceding year—a year singled out as likely to be recorded by historians as the most epoch-making in modern times. Of the many treaties and agreements concluded or ratified with various Treaty Powers, the Sino-Japanese Tariff Agreement signed in May, to be supplement at a later date by a Commercial Treaty of Trade and Navigation, and the exchange of ratifications in Novem- ber of the Sino-Dutch Treaty regulating Tariff Relations stand out as being, perhaps, relatively the most important, constituting as they do the final act, from an historical point of view, in the restoration of tariff autonomy to China. Discussions between China and the Union of Socialist Soviet Re- publics regarding a settlement of the dispute which arose in 1929 over the control and management of the Chinese Eastern Railway were not productive of material result, but in view of impending negotiations further comment on the points at issue would appear inopportune. An agreement for the reor- ganisation of the former Provisional Court in the International Settlement at Shanghai was signed in February and came into force two months later as a temporary arrangement pending the abolition of extraterritoriality. In September the rendition of the British Concession in Amoy took place, while on the 1st October Weihaiwei was formally handed back to China and thence- forward assumed the status of an open port. The importance of China in the eyes of the world as a potential factor in helping to relieve the universal trade depression was indicated by the visit of an unusually large number of foreign trade commissions, the most important being those from Germany, Great Bri- tain, Canada, and Japan, the gcographical position of the last-mentioned country enabling her constantly to keep in touch with changing conditions in any branch of trade in which she is interested. The German Mission exhi- bited a keen interest in industrial enterprisc, and the visit of her delegates appears likely to result in Germany assuming a larger share in the industrial development of the country. The Economic Mission sponsored by the British Government comprised some 16 members, who concentrated on an intensive study of the textile and engineering trades in different parts of the country. The report of this mission will be read with interest not only by their own countrymen but by officials and merchants in China also. The Canadian Mis- sion, while less official in character, was no less important in the scope of its inquiries and, in view of the decline in China's trade with Canada, is cf special interest. For a period of almost seven months a state of constant civil war existed, during which the Tientsin Custom House was seized by emis- saries of the Shansi insurgents, who established their own administration, which functioned from the middle of June to early October. Under these cir- cumstances dislocation of trade was to a certain extent inevitable, and, in order to avoid the liquidation of fiscal obligations both at Custom Houses under national control and at Tientsin, cargoes originally destined for tran- shipment to the latter port were diverted at Hongkong and other place via