September 10, 1896.]
ing the valuation on which the duty which iss levied. The articles (of there are, we believe, a few) that pay 21 per cent. on present market values would therefore have the duty quadrupled. But, on the other hand, if some ar- ticles pay less than five per cent, there are others that pay a good deal more. What is intended to be done with them? In 1889 there was issued from the Statistical Department of the Imperial Maritime Gustoms a valuable work in two volumes giving a set of tables "showing the bearing "of the Chinese Customs Tariff of 1858 on the "Trade of 1885," which we would commend to the attention of those interested in this question. The tables would of course be more valuable if they were brought up to date, and perhaps before the question is finally disposed of the Customs may be good enough to issue a revised edition, but even as they stand the tables will well repay study. At that time, while there were some articles that paid less than five per cent. there were others that paid from five to fifteen per cent., the latter category in- cluding a good many piece goods. In con- sidering a revision of the tariff, therefore, it is important to start with some clear under- standing as to what is intended, whether it is merely a question of exchange compensa- tion, so to speak, under which the duties below five per cent. shall be levelled up, or whether an all round increase is to be given. If the latter, we would counsel the Chambers of Commerce not to concede too much. In making bargains it is always well to keep something in hand for use in the future. A good deal might be conceded if it were certain that a single payment would clear the goods throughout the country, but, whatever promises may be given, a grave doubt will remain whether squeesing will really be entirely abo- lished. Therefore, we would say, make a moderate concession to China in the amount of duty to be collected, to begin with, with a promise of further con- cessions as tradal facilities are increased. China
be cannot
to fairly claim treated straight away as Japan has been treated in the matter of tariff revision. Let her first place herself or a level with Japan as regards honesty of administration and facilities for trade and then the foreign powers will no doubt be willing to treat her on the same terms as Japan, barring the mistakes that have been made in the case of the latter owing to the negotiations being conducted secretly by people who had an imperfect understanding of the subject they were dealing with.
PAKHO AND RIVAL TRADE ROUTES.
#
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT. £1,094,000, attained, apparently, to the high-water mark possible for it under "existing conditions." The decline was Tls. 4,000,000 on the trade of 1894. Mr. ALLEN is of opinion that the falling off is due to the neglect to improve the communications with the West River. Pakhoi at one time succeeded in diverting a cousiderable trade from Tonkin routes, but it was observed at the time that it could not hope to retain this advantage unless it hastened to improve its communications with the West River. This has not beeri done, and with the pacification of Tonkin and the facilities offered in that country for trade in transit, the business seems to have reverted to its old channels. A railway between Pakhoi and the river below Nanning might be very easily made, the country heing almost a plain and offering no engineering difficulties. But, Mr. ALLEN says, without going so far as to wonder why the slight land barrier is not effaced by a rail- way, he has often been struck by. the ease with which the existing cart traffic of the region might be so improved and extended as in a great measure to solve the problem of cheap land transit. "This "is the only region that I am acquainted "with in Southern China, where wheeled "vehicles other than wheelbarrows are in
<< use.
Mr. ALLEN, the Acting Consul at Pakhoi, in his report for 1895 takes a very gloomy view of the trade of that port. "The past "has been, marked by un- year," he says, "usual drought in the region extending "from Pakhoi to Nanning, some 80 miles to "the north-west, and the shrinkage of trade "here noted is ascribed by Chinese to the " consequent dearness of rice having reduced "the consumption of goods of various kinds "in this neighbourhood. On the other hand, however, l'akhoi can this year plead "neither the plague of 1894, adduced by Mr. JOHNSON in explanation of that year's *"decline, nor the floods of 1893, cited in a "similar sense by Mr. FRASER; and taking one year's accidents with another's, it is simpler to conclude that last year's decline "is only part of a natural downward_move- ment which set in as soon as the Pakhoi "trade had, in 1889, with a total of
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AMOY AND THE TEA TRADE
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Mr. CHRIS, GARDNER, the Consul at Amoy, believes the ten cultivation of that Consular district to be a moribund industry. To revive it the Consul suggests that lekin
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and export duty should be abolished and machinery admitted. No loss to the Imperial exchequer need be feared from the adoption of this course,
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assuredly as matters stand at present, there "will in the near future be no tea to collect "either lekin or duty upon." Similar re- commendations have been nade times with- out_number, and there is unfortunately little probability that Mr. GARDNER'S exhortations and recommendations will prove any more effective than those of his predecessors. China cannot make up her mind to forego any portion of the small revenue still remaining to her from tea, although she might thereby save and build up a valuable trade which is now rapidly Even Sir ROBERT slipping from her. HART, usually so far-sighted, has proved himself singularly wrong in this matter. In his report to the Tsung-li Yamen in 1888 he said:"In fact, so many places "want Chinese tea that no matter what
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A further danger now threatens Amoy, namely, the loss of the Formosa tea busi-
-ness.
quantity is produced there is but little "fear of its not finding a market - "The hill tax' apart-which ought to be The wide, dry plain seems, indeed,
repealed for the "made for wheel traffic, and already one
encouragement of bicycle is a familiar object on its expanse
growers-I do not consider that any good "will attend the reduction of ordinary lekin But the lumbering buffalo or bullock cart "here in use is one which seems to class the "and export duty; but there is unquestion- ‘ably room for improvement in every stepand "inventive powers of the local Chinese "mind with those of neolithic man. It is every process in growing and preparing "the embodiment in wood of the apparently
tea, and it is most important that what- "irreducible rudiment of the wheel notion. ever can be done shall be done." Whether It would excite the pitying contempt of a under more favourable circumstances the Peking carter. The huge narrow, tyre Chinese growers might have adopted im- "less wheels of uncertainly circular shape provements in the cultivation and prepara- are merely slow rut-cutting machines, tion of the product may be considered pro- The Pakhoi plain, without any road-blematical, but weighted with a taxation of making at all, would be practicable for 34 per cent. ad valorem as against about 7} light waggons with broad wheels and per cent. levied on Japanese tea competition strong springs. These if drawn by mules was impossible. The result is set out in Mr. or ponies, instead of buffaloes and bullocks, GARDNER's report:--"Twenty-five years-
‘ago $3,000,000 was the annual income of "could probably do in the day more than
"the Amoy ten districts; to-day it is not "twice what the existing vehicles achieve, "and there seems to be no reason why, with
$350,000. Lekin has done it.' a certain amount of simple road-making, "such a system of transit should not be successfully extended across the low water- shed that separates us from the West River." Pakhoi, however, can hardly be considered the natural entrepôt for the district it serves and what importance its trade has attained has been due chiefly to extraneous circumstances. The disturbed condition of Tonkin during the Franco-Chinese hostilities drove a good deal of trade to Pakhoi tem- porarily, while the fiscal obstructions placed in the way of trade via the West River has been a more permanent reason for making use of the Pakhoi route, but that reason also will probably soon cease to be operative. In 1891, when transit passes were issued for a time for trade from Canton by the West River, the Pakhoi import trade suffered severely. Transit passes are now again being issued, and this time the system pro- mises to be permanent. The West River is, moreover, to be opened to navigation by steamers. When goods can be conveyed to Wuchow by steamer and beyond that point under transit pass little or no inducement will remain to use the Pakhoi route, except for the purely locally trade, which is in- considerable.. Nor is there any reason why sentimental regret should be indulged in over the decadence of Pakhoi so long as it is due only to a change of trade routes and not to a decadénce of trade itself, for there are no foreign establishments in the place to be injured by the change.
Not only will the competition with which the Amoy growers have to contend be increased by the fact that Formosa teas will now pay an export duty of only $1.10 per picul under the Japanese tariff as against between 18x and seven dollars which Amoy_tea has to bear, but it seems likely that Formosa tea may no longer be brought to Amoy for transhipment. On this point, however, Mr. GARDNER seems to take rather an optimistic view. "The loss of the Formosa tea business
"
to Amoy," he says, "would be a very "serious blow to the prosperity of the port, would seriously affect the customs revenue "in the matter of tonnage dues, would throw "out of employment many hundreds of "labourers, and, by reducing the circulation “of money in the city by some millions of
dollars, materially affect its already rapidly 'declining prosperity. It is impossible to "over-estimate the value in indirect ways "which the Formosa tea trade is to Amoy,. "and all interested in the welfare of our
L
port, officials and merchants alike, should "do their utmost to retain it. Now that "Formosa is ceded to Japan, the future of "the Amoy-Tamsui trade is a source of “considerable anxiety to those engaged in "it, and divergent opinions exist as to whether the first-mentioned port can still "remain (as it has done for the last 25 years) the practical headquarters of the "Formosa tea business. In the absence of
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