Waen any difficulties arise in our relations with China, as a matter of course we expect to find a certain party expatiate on the iniquity of British residents in the East, and on the necessary difference between their policy and what should be adopted by the British Government, Hvena paper usually so well informed as the Saturday Review trents us in a late number to 8 variety of threats, founded on the supposed divergence of interests. The "old caricature of the merchant, with a bale of shirtings in one hand and a pistol in the other, still haunts the minds of a section of very well disposed, but partially informed, people who think they see, in what they denominate with @ covert sneer the "demands" of the British merchants, nothing but difficulty for Great Britain, We, of course, do not allude to such Politicans as Mr. Bridges, in the last number of the Oontemporary Review. With them we can make use of @ very simple equation. Given a single fact in connection with China, and we can surely predicate the result as can an astronomer, froma single observation, the position of a planet whose orbit is accurately known. When, however, reasonable men put the question what re the complaints made by the merchants in China, they will find them to be protests against a state of affairs anoli, as exists nowhere else in the world, What would any student of politics or political economy say to Chamber of Commerce which would remain silent while taxes were being raised which, in some instances, amount to as much as 509%: on the actual cost of the articles Beyond this even, what would he say were he told that no published statement of the duties really leviable was obtain. able, but that the merchant had to make with each consignment of goods the best terms-he could with the various farmers along the road it was travelling P -'This is, however, the state of affairs in Chine, and it is against this that tae protests of the mercantile classes have been uniformly turned. This is no new state of affairs. We have heard, in many even well-informed quarters, that the merchants of China are addicted to a species of smuggling. Wo may allow them in this matter to speak for themselves. So long ago as March 1850, we find the Shanghai Chamber protesting against the loose system of collecting duties through the Custom House. They did not wish to smuggle goods, and they suggested several times to the British Consul, then Mr, Alcock, that they were quite willing to give every information in their power, and urged on the Consular authorities the advisability of exercise ing ® stricter supervision. As matters then stood, there was really a premi placed on the dishonest dealer long as the system continued, they saw difficulties in the way of carrying on their trade as they would desire. These protests finally led to the appointment of foreign inspectors, on which was founded the present Maritime Customs.
in, it has been put forward by well informed parties that British merchants have been seeking for special privileges for themselves as against the Chinese, in the hope thereby to attract to Foreign bands a portion of the trade which would naturally go into native hands. So far from this being the case, the fact is that the Chamber of Commerce have consistently stated that they desired that, in all trade re-galatians, this distinction set up between British and Native merchants should be done away with. It was not at their instigation, or with their approbation! that the clauses requiring declarations of Foreign ownership have been inserted in such documents as applications for internal passes, &. They have uniformly declared that, while they wished trade protected, they sought no individual concessions. They wished some system by which native traders should be protected as well as foreign the benefit of the trade was paramount to the private pelf of the individual. Of late yenrs, their case has been considerably strengthened from quarters whence it might least be expected. The reports of the Chinese, or of Foreigners employed in the Chinese service, have shown how the revenue is actually the direct loser by the present system. When stipulations have been observed, and a reasonable encouragement given to trade, the result has been that the finances have improved. When, on the contrary, heavy likin dues and unauthorised exactions have been the order of the day, we have the plain authority of published reports, whether in the Peking Gazette or in the Customs' reports, that the revenue has been in the long run a loser. It is impossible to calculate the amount of injury thereby done to the trade of China; bat when we find, eleven years after the suppression of a devastating rebellion, that trade declines to increase, and that all merchants and officials ery out about the depressing result of financial exactions, we have at least good ground to found our argument, In these matters, the interests of the merchants and those of Great Britain cannot be separated. Both desire the. establishment of a healthy trade, and the measures proposed by the merchants are neither inconsistent with the findings of political economy, nor framed in a selfish spirit of self-aggrandisement, It is a pity that the often mooted scheme of & Chinese Association at home has not before this been carried into effect. The apparent divergence of interests is one of those plausible fallacies which a proper understanding would soon put an end to, LAND REGISTRATION, Tux subject of the present method of Land Registration in Shanghai-is one which has frequently been brought before the notice of the public, yet one which needs being ventilated again and again. Opinions may differ—indeod do differ—as to the advisability of a system of registration at all; but a system being in operation, there is no question that it should be made as perfect as possible, or otherwise it may entail evils greater than its absence could produce, No one who has studied the working of the present system can deny that it is in the last degree imperfect, and affords much room for abuses. Probably its greatest defect is in the identification of ree gistered land. In point of fact, it would appear that the Consular Officers taken thought of these things. Somobody attends with the Tepao of the district, to do what by a figure of speech is termed "measuring" the land, The Tepao returns his measurement to the Chinese authorities, and on this slender basis of identification the title. deeds are issued. As compared with the records in the various Consulates, these "measurements" vary in a most whimsical manner from the actual ground held. While one man's land, on being actually measured, is found to contain as much as fifty per cent, over the official measurement, another perhaps contains but two-thirds, or even less, This is, however, but a small portion of the matter. Probably no other system of land registration exists which does not make the deposit of a guaranteed survey a cine gud non before registration. If any such rule prevails at Shanghai, it is allowed to become a dead letter. In the great majority of cases, @ search through the records for any intelligible description of the property in question will be utterly fruitless. Even when given, in many cases the plans attached are little better, as being mainly ex parte delineations. One man, when invited to give a plan of a property to be registered, produces 4 sketch on a piece of blotting paper, and even this is more than can be found
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.