Page
C
April 17. 1909.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
DUTY.
(Daily Press, April 14th.) Though the tea merchants sharing in the trade of the United States have been bring ing to bear upon the President and the members of Congress all the pressure they have it in their power to exert-which after all is not very great-to prevent the re- imposition of a duty on the import of ten into the United States, it can safely be said that they are all very much astonished that their wish has been gratified. We do not know that we can write that their efforts have been crowned with success, for the telegraphic news which has reached the bas been influenced solely by consideration East on the subject shows that the decision for the consumers, and not by the protests and appeils exporters in Japan and Ceylon. Both in made from growers and Japan and in Ceylon the proposal to impose a tax of eight cents on tea has caused much in China we have failed to notice that it has concern to all engaged in 'the tea trade, but caused the slightest commotion among the fatalists. With them what is, must be. The tea-growers. They belong to a nation of pioneer foreign merchants built up a large which bas of late years steadily declined, trade in China tea with European countries, mainly because the growers could not be incuced to manifest the spirit of enterprise standard of culture and to adopt new necessary to maintain and improve the old processes of preparing the tea which would enable them to hold the markets they had acquired against the growing competition of Ceylon teas. So it is when a tax which nearly doubles the laying down cost of China tea threatens the total extinction of the China tea trade with the United States, China, though next to Japan, China, as a we hear of no protests, or appeals from
seriously affected by the proposal. tea growing country, is probably the most
311
few words is the whole position. The trade journals in America commented on the proposed duty in a spirit of resignation, it being accepted that the only real excuse for the duty was that the Government needed the money it would yield, and it was there. fore felt that no amount of persuasion would alter the intentions of the Govern Japan we gather that President TAFT was ment. From telegrams which have reached absolutely opposed to the taxation of daily necessaries, and he classed tea among them. Congress has now endorsed that view, but the tea market in America is likely to suffer considerably for some time by the heavy shipments which have recently been made in anticipation of the imposition of a duty next month,
A HONGKONG CEMETERY
QUESTION.
this, intended to be the main central line of UNITED STATES AND THE TEA would have to get cheaper tea. That, in a China, has been built, and Peking, for whom SHENG has long acted the part of a sponge to dry up the Provinces, and afterwards himself got squeezed out, has so far found there a ready co-adjutor. hundred thousand
The nine taels deficiency in one single year, which Peking finds itself called upon to repay, and which will require all the plausible commonplaces of which SHENG has all his life been a master, to explain, will probably more than anything else show to Peking how much it, itself, loses year by year by the wasteful system of Lakin, whose principal result is to support an enormous army of utterly useless under- lings amounting in each province to many thousands; and which returns in each case to headquarters but an infinitesimal pro- portion of the amount collected, with the greatest amount of harm to the Empire at large. The incident besides is of importance in showing how great are the difficulties to be overcome in any scheme of reform, how- ever plain to the nation at large may be the need. In no country in the world, not even in England prior to the Reform Bill, have vested interests acquired so absolute a tyranny over the State as in China; and of all the vested interests concerned in blocking the roads of progress, from its verv numbers, go one institution can compare with the Likin establishment. The greatest element in bringing about the French Revolution was the power to which as a body the Féremiers Generaux bad attained which rendered any attempt on the part of successive sovereigns and ministries to reform the finances of the State otherwise impracticable. The proportion of the popu- lation of China more or less directly in- terested in upholding the Farming of the Revenue implied by the continuance of the gigantic system of Likin collection cannot be less, is probably greater, than in France; and this huge monopoly, employing more collectors than the total of the army, and amounting probably to not far short of one' per cent. of the population, all told, has grown to be entirely independent of the Government; employing its own officers, making its own rates, and controlling the whole of the inland commerce of the Empire; and no officer of Government, from the Viceroys downward dares, as this incident of the Nanking Railway exemplifies plainly, offer any opposition. The abolition of Likin would imply the immediate discharge of some three hundred and fifty thousand practically lawless men who have been accustomed in their dealings with the merchants of China to make their own terms without official interference. This it was that staggered each successive Prime Minister in France; and this it is that has paralysed the efforts (f well-meaning officials, both metropolitan and provincial in China. Originally started as a ready means of collecting revenue at a period when rebellion all round bad enfeebled the Executive Power, it has already existed long enough to have become a serious menace to the Empire itself. The incident goes, however, to prove that further dullying is hopeless, and that the institution has already commenced its struggle with the Imperial Power-astruggle which must of necessity he à l'outrance, and for one or other means extinction.
Captain James Home of the steamer Hong Bee which arrived in port yesterday with 826
Chinese passengers from Penang and Singapore, reported that on the way up a Chinese passenger jumped overboard. The ship was stopped and after a lot of manoeuvring the man was picked
up.
(Daily Press, April 15th.)
"Colonial Cemetery" which took place at the The discussion with regard to the Sanitary Board on Tuesday is interesting HOOPER moved a resolution affirming it to. frou many points of view. Mr. SHELTON
be desirable that the Government should of persons of the Buddhist and other non- provide a special cemetery for the interment Christian cemeteries are at present provided-where faiths-for whom no special
religious rites and ceremonies which are it may be lawful to practice any of the forbidden by the new bye-law governing what is called the "Colonial Cemetery" at Happy Valley. was adopted by the Sanitary Board last This now bye-law, which October and approved by the Legislative Couveil in December, prohibits the burning of joss-sticks and the firing of crackers in the author of the bye-law and his motive this cemetery. Mr. SHELTON HOOPEE was
apparently was to put a stop to the inter- ment of Chinese in the cemetery intended as opposition in Congress to imposing taxation the Chinese have their own cemeteries it However, it appears that there is strong a final resting place for Europeans; and as on what are called the common necessaries of life, and tea as well as coffee has been would bear hardly on anyone. The fact was not foreseen that the new bye-law definitely Whereat there must be much rejoicing inconspicuous feature of the ritual of the put back into the free list. that what are termed "joss-sticks" form a Japan, and a sense of satisfaction should Japanese faiths was apparently overlooked prevail among the growers in China. Japan at teas, including the Formosan product, members of the Japanese community to the. the time, and objections made by represent eighty per cent of the tea exported new bye-law led to the motion which was to America, and the rest is made up of the discussed by the Sanitary Board on Tues- products of China and Ceylon. views are apparently held by the experts Colonial Cemetery, as its name implied, Diverse day. Mr. LAU CHU PAK asserted that the dealing in Ceylon teas as to what effect a duty on tea would have on the trade in the irrespective of ationality or religion, was open to every resident in the Colony, United States. We have before us expert opinions on the subject. One says it
two Although Mr. SHELTON HOOPER was not in would have the effect of excluding the is an entirely erroneous idea, it is hardly a position to show very positively that this
would not pay importers to buy it; while provided for the interment of Euro- poor China teas and other rubbish," as it open to doubt that the cemetery was the other writer expresses the opinion that peans of the Protestant faith. the tax would inevitably increase the cemeteries
Special demand for the commoner grades.
were provided for the latter is doubtless the correct view to faith, and for those who belonged to the The Chinese, for persons of the Mohammedan take, for it is absurd to say, as the first Roman Catholic church, and iu view of expert does, that the tax will not fall what had previously happened at Macao, on the consumer, but on the importer. The we feel sure that if the official records can authorities from the importer, but it is an tax is certainly demanded by the Customs be turned up, it will clearly appear that even axiom in economics that the importered the Colonial Cemetery, the term was not though the cemetery may be now designat- recoups himself by charging a correspond- ingly higher price to the consumer. And the consumer has an inveterate objection to been accustomed pay more for his commodities than he has to pay, and it is in the grocer, who has been selling a canister highest degree probable that
of tea for years at a certain price will try his best not to change the price of his canister, and in order to get his profit he
16
the
ที่
originally employed in the comprehensive sense suggested by Mr.LAUCHU PAK. In the early days there was a Colonial Chaplain, and what more natural than that he should describe the cemetery at which he officiated the cemetery of the Colonial church? 8 the Colonial cemetery - meaning thereby Certainly there is no other warrant for the description, for whenever the Government Gazette had occasion to mention the
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.