'The British mercantile community hero has been obliged to lodge a strong protest against the arbitrary conduct of the French Customs authorities in regard to' British imports. Declarations of origin are frequently declared to be false, in spite of the clearest documentary evidence to the contrary. In some of these cases heavy fines for making false declarations were inflicted and in others large sums had to be deposited as caution money. The exports appointed by the Customs are frequently traders in direct competition with the importer of the goods. Frequent changes in the classification are made without notice, and the result is that importers suddenly find themselves called upon to pay much heavier daties than they had reckoned upon. As things at present stand, a French manufacturer who desires to hamper the import of an article in which he is interested, as a manufacturing com-titer, has only to lodge a request at the ministry of Commerce for an alteration of the classification. In the majority of cases the request is complied with on the strength of this ex parte and interested statement said on the other side. All this shows what without hearing anything that might be British merchants may expect when China breaks up and France gets her portion.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.