28rd Sept. "AND it is a prood woman the Queen will be to-day" said an enthusiast of Committees of the Chamber of Commerce and the China Association. 'I'he vigour that the Chamber of Commerce has displayed of late has bees more than duce referred to; in nothing has it done better than in its decision to accredit Mr. Dudgeon as its representative to the Diplomatic Body at Peking. Primarily, Mr. Dudgeon goes to Peking as the representative of the new Cotton Mill industry; to show the Diplomatic Body the impolicy of allowing the products of the four Cotton Mills that are now rising so rapidly in Shanghai to be taxed more highly than imported goods, whether directly or by means of squeezes on the raw cotton, or by squeezes on the goods themselves after they leave the mills; and the injustice of showing avy preference to the mills entirely owned by Chinese, Mr. Dudgeon has also undertaken to represent the Chamber of Commerce in the matter of the proposed revision of the tariff, his instructions practically being that importers here will agree to the raising of the tariff to ten per cent ad valorem, if all internal squeezes and restrictions on the trade are removed. He will also explain the condition of the China tea trade whose threatened extinction is largely due to the high local and imperial taxation to which tea is subject, amounting often at present prices to fifty and more percent. Chiva tea cannot obviously now hope to compete with the entirely untaxed product of Ceylon avd India. I'he foreign tea-merchants propose the entire abolition of duties on tea; a suggestion which may shock the Board of Revenue, but whose adoption would be a benefit of the highest importance to the native tea-growers and merchants. Mr. Dadgeon can lay the views of the foreigners interested in these matters before the Diplomatic Body and the Inspector-General of Customs, and the Tsungli Yamen far better than any number of despatches. He knows his subjects well, and takes a deep personal interest Of his private qualifications for the mission be has undertaken there is no need to say anything. We are warned by a leading French newspaper that the French Government will not ce-operate with us in the negotiation for a revision of the Chinese tariff, but that warning must not be taken too After what has rei cently occurred in Peking, it is not likely that avy other Minister will be very eager for the ce-operation of M, Gerard: but the other Ministers will no doubt work together in what bids fair to be a not very easy task, even should H.E.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.