(2) the rem with a long Memorial from ti merchants who hold it, and to reduce the duty on the article in both Kuangtung and Kuangsi as an act of comparison towards produce: and Chine On the 16th of July Inst the Governor.
al received from the Grand Qouncil ial Decree dated the 22nd of June, formed thi ts had obtained a monopoly of the trade in cassia bark in ths Kuei-ping and other districts of Kuan and, under the pretence of contracting for the payment of duty, kept down the price of the article, committing frauds with the collusion of the Custom-House According to the original Memorial aded to His Mujesty, the Districts of Jung Hsien, Teng Hsien and chou Fu and Wa-chou tot a network of hills and valleys ts of which are engaged the cultivation of cassia, stripping off the bark yearly and selling The estimated jue of the bark is'7 to 8 taels per picul, duty, collected at Ta-wu Hei junta to Tis, 40,000 or Tis,
jitants of the counts ign of 2 free from oppr or trouble. At that time, howe Yuen Chi, Chung Yung T% other Canton firms, sixteen in all, under the false pretence of contracting for the payment of the duty, obtained a monopoly of ie trade and would allow no one Having posted Canton Custom House, they insisted on buying the bark at a low rate, rat, they Li only reduced the price from seven or eight taels to two or three taels per picul. But they afterwards brought it down to seventy or eighty cents, which would not pay the cost of planting and gathering, and the growers gradually became impoverished. In the year 1885 a man named Hu of the Ch'ien I T'ang firm contrived to anat former syndicate and obtained the mon: poly for himself al His proceedings were even harsher than those of his pre-
River, while Chinese merchants continued tv use the Canton route and thus obtained a small fraction of the profits of the trad 'A year ayo, when 'Fraueit Pass troduced at' Canton, foreigners engaged the trade all adopted the eastern route, thus had the udvautage of water ca ringe and made oven roster profite laying the cassia down at a much Merchants who pay along River, Formerly, when Kuangri cousin mas brought by' Chinese Merchauta to Canton and sold there to foreigners its export price was more than ton tao la, while even in Kuangei it cost as much as eight or nine taels. ho growers thus made large profits and the production rapidly increased. Afterwards there was a extension of the cultivation in Lo-which took aray a portion of the profit, During the last fifteen or sixtwon yours the increase in the production has bes accom: panied by " steudy full in the export prio while the institution of more lekin parti has been followed by a reduction in the gains of tra Moreover the general employment of Transit Passos hus wenkouod the position of Chines merchants, ao that the purchasing price could not but fall, It has even come down to eighty or 1 cents per picul, which scarcely pays cost of gathering the bark, Forei do not the competition of Chinese merchants, who, they know, have to pay more for the article, and therefore will only offer a low price. Lhe circumstances, i devd, are much the same in the ca both Provi The difficulties ta arise from the use of 4 the difiicultios of the iso from true reasons why the c 0 steadily unprosperoy It was in the year 1850 that the cullection of the cassia duties was first farmed out to mercliuuts, the farmers being the I Shun Tfavg and other firms, 1u 1855 they were aucoeeded by a syndicate called the Ho El ing of ton firms, eign ships and exported at fixed periods, awhile it was collected by the a8 to be in readiness for sale to the largo firms, Ihe cassia growers in Hoiia-chou and Wu-chou were some hun-drove of thousands in number, and there were several hundreds of middlemen, scattered about everywhere, and it being difficult to keep watch ov them, merchants were invited to undertake the collection of the duty with the object of putting on them the respon: bility of preventing any evasion of it,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.