23rd Sept. Tr has been customary in China when there is a scarcity in one district to allow grain to be shipped thither. from ports where it is plentiful, free of duty, ithe grain so shipped is protected by its, or huchoos, these being hitherto issued in Shanghai at the Taotai's yamen against payment of a small fee which was supposed to be the perquisite of the castially-paid yamen. underlings. shipped to ontsia by whatever vessel For many years past all the grain
has gone free of duty, protected by these permits, so important is it considered to, keep the metropolitan province in od humour, Since Sheng Taotai, the well-known head of the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company and of the Chinese ''Telegraphs' Administration, has become Customs 'Taotai at Tientsin, orders have come to Shanghai that these permits are only to be issued for grain which is to be shipped by the steamers of the China Merchants' Ca.; the English lines of steamers, belonging to the China Navigation and the Indo-China Companies, being thus practically tabooed. The first order was that permits already issued could only used for the Chinese steamers, but in consequence of the representations made, this was withdrawn, and a new aystem was Pwo so-called "Compassionate Commissioners" have -been installed at the office of the China Merchants' Ca., one being an employe of that Company and the other an employe of the Telegraph Administra~ tion. One is an expectant Taotai, named Wang Chung-sin, and the other an ex-Fistant prefect named King Yuen-shin.
pretext on which they have been is thoroughly Chinese. Itis represented, ordered to ay on the new arrangement we learn, that there is a great demand for grain at Tientsin to feed the refugees, but owing to the greed of the merchants the price of rice is maintained at an extortionate level. These commissioners have been accorditigly appointed to supervise the shipment of rice at actual Gast price, no profit being made on it as it is for such a charitable purpose, and as the China Merchants' Company is, for the same object, prepared to take the grain at unprecedentedly low rates, it is to have the sole right of taking grain protected by these permits.
This pretext, of course, will not hold water fora moment. It is impossible that with free competition grain can be dearer at Tientsin than when there is only one (official) buyer in the market, and one steamer line has the monopoly of its carriage: and as a matter of fact the ordinary laws of trade have hitherto operated so smoothly and certainly, that grain is so plentiful in Tientsin that there is at the moment no anxiety here to ship it; so that this new and illegitimate system could not have been inaurated at a time when it would do less damage to the English steamer companies. It is none the less to be strenuously opposed as an audacious violation of treaty rights, and it is very much to be regretted that HE Li Hung-chang, by whose authority it' is being done, should have allowed Timselt to be Jed by the nose by his unscrupulous subordinate, Sheng Taotai. The American Commercial Treaty with China of 1880, which by the most favoured nation clauses governs China's trade with every Treaty Power, says distinctly "His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of China hereby promises and agrees that no other kind or higher rate of tonnage dues or duties for imports or exports or coastwise trade shall be im-China upon vessels wholly belonging to ed or levied in the open ports of
citizens of the United States or upon the produce... transported in the same from one open port in China to another, than are imposed or levied on vessels or cargoes of any other nation, or on those of Chinese subjects."
This refusal to allow grain to be shipped duty-free by English steamers while permitting it by Chinese steamers, is a direct contravention of the above Article, and it is impossible that Sheng Taotai's scheme for aggrandising the company of which he is the Director should not collapse directly Sir John Walsham brings it to the attention of the Tsungli Yamen. The new system is repugnant, naturally enough, to the Taotai here, but he and the Foreign Customs can do nothing, as it is established with the authority of the Superintendent of Trade for Northern China, H.E. Li Hung-chang. As we have already said, it is not doing much harm to the English steamer companies at the moment, but if it is successful, an unscrupulous person like Sheng Taotai will undoubtedly use it as precedent. In his support of the new Telegraph Convention—and Chinese in the north do not hesitate to say that he has private and weighty reasons for that support—and in this attempt to override the treaties, he has shown what kind of an official he is, and it is very unfortunate, as perhaps the Throne will realise before long, that-he should have been appointed to such an important post as the Customs Taotaiship at Tientsin. Sir John Walsham is soon going home, and no doubt does not much incline to interest himself in new questions, but it is impossible for him not to vigorously protest at once to the Tsungli Yamen against this bold attempt to nullify a subsisting treaty with China.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.