complaint was of the excessive charges {on tea, amounting to 50 per cent on! the average price. At Foochow, too, jit is a grievance that the city of Foochow is treated as being outside the Nimits of the port.
Next comes Shanghai, and Mr, Brenan gives a summary of the suggestions made to him by the China Association here. He dwells at some length on the suggestion "that while the British Minister at Peking is accredited to the Chinese Government, we should have an Agent apart who, while subordinate to Her Majesty's Minister at Peking, should be accredited to the prov: governors." lhe semi-independence of the provincial governments makes this Huecessars. The Eh ask that as the Br much occupied with political matters, {a commercial commissioner should be appointed to further British trade, They draw attention also to the comignormuce of the governing classes the principles of financial administration. Mr. Brenan, however, ifeers that nothing would be gained thy accrediting an Agent to the provincial governments. "''he Shanghai Committee's arguments," he says, " are chief-{ty based on the assumption that provineial rulers have the welfare of the country, and particularly of their province, at heart, and that domestic improvements which experience has proved to be beneficial to every nation adopting them have for this reason a chance of being adopted in China if properly pressed by a duly accredited superintendent of trade or commercial commissioner. Similarly the Committee seem hopeful that a British commissioner might persuade the provincial authorities to reform their financial system and thereby consolidate the credit of the nation. I fear the Committee are giving provincial rulers credit for virtues they do not possess. Nothing is further from their mind than a wish to reform their financial system. The Chinese official of to-day thrives by defrauding the State, and the wore confused the financial is system the greater is his opportunity." Mr. Brenan has had a long and wide experience of the ways of provincial rulers, "Phe next point treated by Mr. Brenan is the advisability of the separation of the offices of Chief Judge and Consul-General. All the objections which we pointed out in these columns when we first announced that the amalgamation of these offices had been decided on, an amalgamation which would probably not have taken place if Sir John Walsham had been a little more energetic and a little less procrastination; have been shown by experience to be well-founded, and if we do not dwell on them agaly now, it is because there is reason to believe that the Foreign Office at home is at last convinced of j the unwisdom of the amalgamation, and that we may look for a change before very long.
Mr. Brenan doubts whether the right of residence in the interior for purposes of trade would be much availed of, but thinks it would be an advantage if british firms were allowed to establish native agencies in the interior with their name on the signboard, He poltts out the difficulties that exist in the way of allowing freedom of navigation on inland waters unless the steamers were under the Chinese flag. He admits the advantages that would result from the establishment of a uniform national currency, "If China had national currency, a merchant who lad to pay 22 taels of duty (in the interior) would pay 22 taels and there would be an end of the matter. But this would be to deprive an army of officials of their emoluments." The need for a reform in the Mixed Court and the appointment of a judge of much higher rank, is mentioned, Mr, Brenan quotes the China Association's " Notes jon the Shipment of Rice and Grain, ete," with their scathing allusions to H.E, Sheng, the present Director-General of Railways; and he shows how local famines are utilised to pnt money into the pockets of the high officials. In dealing with the suggestion that the importation of salt should be allowed Mr. Brenan mentions that salt is x Government. monopoly and says:-—" Right Uirough there is peculation on a grand scale. It has been estimated by competent persons that if the importation of foreign salt was permitted on payment of an import duty of 100 per cent ad valorem, the salt revenue would be doubled, and the consumer would get his salt for about Jul the present price."
The other subjects torched on in this section are the registration of trade-marks, the liability of Chinese shareholders for unpaid capital, aa to which Mr. Brenan is not hopeful that it will be enforced, the delay in issuing drawbacks, etc., and the grievances at Chinkiang arising from the continued maintenance of the obsolete Yangtze Regulations The appointment to Chinkiang of a Commissioner of Customs auxiots to facilitate trade would do much to mitigate these grievances, Holtoway's Ointment and Pitls,—Diveases of the skin.—No case of discase ut the skin, be its nature what it may, has failed to be benefited when these potent remedies have been properly applied. In scrofulous and scorbutic affections they are especially serviceable, Scury and eruptions, which had resisted all other modes of treatment and gradually become worse from year to year, have been completely cured by Holloway's cooling Ointment and purifying Pills, which root out the disease from the blood itself and leave the constitution free from every morbid int. Tu the misery Holloway's Ointment should be ever at hand'; it will give ease in sprains, contusions, burns, scalds, and infantile eruptions, and may always safely be applied by any ordinary attendant.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.