pice ren aca (Communicated.
Newspaper articles should not necessarily be accepted literally because, under the editorial we' lies a s personality, no more infallible than the ordinary mortals from whom we' gathers information, When therefore an article on Taxation of Chinese Manufactures appears in a local print, with the addition that "The rules (9 in all) are framed by Sir Robert Hart," it does not follow that such is the case, it only means that we' has come across something which he thinks will interest his readers. Upon the hurtfulness of spreading false information we' never pauses to consider. Without dreaming of consequences, we' writes Sir Robert Hart down an ass. Now Sir Robert Hart is not at all an ass, on the contrary be is a very intelligent anan, His present position proves it, and the higher position of British Minister to China is at any time within his grasp, has indeed been taken up by him and lightly thrown aside. To say then that Sir Robert Hart could frame rules favouring other countries and hurtful to China is to tax credulity too much. In the rules them-solves, as published, the main point is
he paid duty on at 10 per cent upon their All goods before leaving godown are to value.
For some time past there has been growing up in China a cotton spinning industry and mills have been and ate being erected not only in Shanghai but at Wuchang, Soochow, Ningpo, and possibly Hangchow. The meaning of a tax of 10 per cent upon their production is that Sir Robert Hart
Ve do not want capital employed in in effect China, we do not, want industries created to find employment for Chinese, but we do want capital and industry diverted to India, Japan, and elsewhere.
Cotton yarn is merely a question of cotton, labour, and machinery, and its cost is determined by the cost of these three. It must be apparent to the most unthinking that while cotton is grown in China, if it is not allowed to be manufactured in China, it must be exported to where it can be manufactured and that cotton comes back to China in the shape of manufactured yarn no one can deny. The average price of Indian yarn may be Shanghai Tls. 65 per bale and the duty. is Shanghai Tls. 2.3.6, or about 3% per cent. Chinese yarn being spun from better cotton is superior to and sells for a higher price than Indian yarn and may be worth Shanghai Tls. 75 per bale, 10 per cent duty upon which would be Shanghai Tls. 7.5.0 per bale. English yarn is spun from finer ent ton than either China or India produces and may be worth Shanghai Tls. 95 per bale, upon which Shanghai Tls. 2.3.6 duty is about 24 percent. Sir Robert Hart then is charged with proposing to tax yarn spun in China with Shanghai Tls. 5.1.4 per bale more than yarn spun in Indiay Japan, or England. Sir Robert Hart is charged with proposing to force the cotton cultivators of China into exporting their cotton in order that steamship companies may be Denefited by carrying it, that natives of other countries may be benefited by spinning it, and again that steamship companies may be benefited by carrying it back to China as yarn. Cotton is not carried anywhere without freight and attendant, expenses, but it is not the buyers who bear this change, it is the producers, and were it only Ti. 1 per bale and absent, then instead of this TI. 1 going into the ket of steamship owners, it would go into the pockets of producers. The spinner bears the cost of carriage of yarn and were this absent, as it would be on yarns cheaper. Taxing Chinese manufactures spun in China, then yarn would be so much
means therefore nothing less than robbing the cotton grower of what he would otherwise have earned and, for what he has left, ving him a lesser quantity of yarn than could obtain were he to work his cotton into yarn in his own country. But bad as this would be, taxing Chinese manufactures three and four times more heavily than the manufactures of other countries is infinitely worse, as it would mean the extinction of manufacture in China, since the cost of carriage of a bale of yarn is less than Shanghai 'Tls. 5-1-4, the difference between Shanghai Tls. 2-3-6, duty upon imported yarn, and Shanghai Tls. 7-5-0, duty upon Tocal spinning. Such is not the work of a statesman and therefore it is not well for any newspaper we' to imagine and amplify We give a translation of the rules as it reaches us from a Chinese source," by adding "The rules (9 in all) are framed by Sir Robert Hart."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.