Tue want of continuity in Chinese reasoning is well exemplified from time to time in the Peking Gazettes. It would be natural to suppose that a truism once established, it would be accepted as a base for further progress, but all our acquaintance with the Chinese serves to show that this is not the case, Now and then in the Gazettes we come across practical statements, which surprise us no less by their truth than by the power of reasoning they disclose yet we find that they have no effect whatever on the movement of events, and that the mind of the nation, apparently incapable of the effort of grasping anything new, however indisputable, pre-fors reasoning in the old groove to making the slight effort required to leave it. In nothing is this peculiarity more marked than in the matter of internal transit dues. On the part of foreigners: merchants, economists, jour-rialists and diplomatists, have one and all represented in the strongest light the evil inflicted, not on foreign trade alone, but on the well-being of the empire, by the system in vogue of collecting, by means of irresponsible officials, constantly accumulating levies on goods passing through the country. We ourselves have certainly not been backward in pointing out the evils the empire of China is suffering by the stupid adherence of the Government to a vicious system which strikes at the very root of trade, All that we have said, however, does not transcend the remarks of the Censor Yuen Ch'eng-yeh, in the Peking Gazette, with regard to the evils of the system; and these' remarks, as coming from a Chinese officer, deserve to be widely known:—*Originally introduced under pressure of financial exigencies during the rebellion, as a merely temporary expedient, the likin tax is still main. tained, notwithstanding that the whole Empire is more or less freed from disturbance, and that tranquillity has prevailed in some of the provinces for the last ten years or more. The li-kin tax officers are actually increased in number, and the officials appointed to collect the tax impose grievous hardships upon the population, and throw difficulties in the way of trade in transit. In some cases merchandize no sooner comes within the scope of one of these officers than it is declared to be smuggled—in others, goods other than opium are made the subject of extortion by violence. The desire to inister to private gain is greatly in excess of anxiety for the public revenue. It is beyond the power of words to depict in' full the malpractices which are carried on in this connection, The high Provincial authorities in general are well aware of all this, but the reason assigned for inability to do away' with the tax is the need of reorganization. Reorganization, however, should be wholly beneficial if undertaken at all; and the Censor is moved to request that orders be issued to all the provincial governments, desiring them to devise measures compatible with the existing condition of affairs, for the suppression of the poppy cultivation and the abolition of the li-kin tax."
Yuen Ch'eng-yoh is probably speaking from personal knowledge, in star ing that the high provincial off-cers are well aware of the injury being done by the present system. Now and then one of them issues a mild remonstrance, but of such a nature that it is sure to end in nothing. In fact, instead of relief, the tax is being imposed more deliberately than ever, and this in the face of the fact that it has already reached a point whence it ceases to be productive, and that year by year, instead of increasing, we have continual complaints that the Kkin revenue is actually falling off. The great obstacle to the removal or readjustment of the tax, pointed out by the Censor, is intensely characteristic.
not that it is advisable that it should be continued, or that in some measure it may be suited to the exigencies of the moment. It is, on the contrary, the old obstacle in China, the trouble of thinking out a sub-tute. The reason assigned, we are informed, is the need of reorganisation; and the ability to reorganise is just that point where the ordinary Chinese mind utterly breaks down. It was only the other day that, in reviewing the Customs' Medical Reports, we quoted a remark from the Drs. Manson, at Amoy, as to the physical incapacity for change or adaptation of the Chinese race. What with us requires merely a mental effort, becomes to them a disturber of their whole system; and the mental labour of reorganizing a system however evil, is one that without doubt will always, except under pressure, be shiked by Chinese in office. The report of the Censor Yuen is, then, only another instance of the fact that a knowledge of the evils produced by any course of conduct is not of itself sufficient in China to procure its amendment. We have been listening, year after year, to complaints on the part of the Chinese Government as to our own conduct in this very matter of internal transit dues. We have been told persistently that we were robbing the Government of its legitimate revenue, and were met with so many expostulations against the'advisability of interfering with the internal affairs of the empire, that our representatives at Peking seem to have become thoroughly convinced of the heinous crime of the merchants at the ports in asking for relief from exactions contrary to treaty. And all this while, we find that none were more thoroughly aware of the evils of the system than the high officers themselves, and that the great obstacle in the way of reform was the amount of trouble and mental exertion required in working out a reorganization of the system. Yet much of the necessary mental labour had really been saved. The principle of exemption introduced by the treaty of Tientsin, whereby the duties leviable along a line of traffic could be commuted by one payment at the beginning, was the one thing needed to reform the whole system. Like every step in advance, it would never have been taken by the Chinese Government unless under external pressure, yet there was no greater difficulty in applying it to the thousand articles of native trade than tothe three or four of foreign import. If barrier officials could be taught torespeot the one exemption ticket, there was no great reason why they could not learn to respect the others. It is not the amount charged at each or any of the barriers which strangles internal trade, but it is, as has been often pointed out, the accumulation of these small amounts, which after a fow barriers are passed renders further progress impossible. Notwithstanding the report of Censor Yuen, we may confidently predict, thab the "need of reorganisation" will remain as impassable an obstacle as ever, unless external circumstances force on the Chinese Government the reform of what it is well aware forms one of the most crying evils of the body politic.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.