One may say that under the Treaty the only thing quite certain is that we shall have to pay the increased duties, while judging by past experience there is reason~ doubt, Pto pat it mildly, that the reforms promised will be carried out; but surely, in crediting our Government with a greater measure of intelligent interest in Chinese affairs than it showed 40 years ago, and in assuming that China will be obliged to introduce into her relations vith the Powers more good faith than in the past, it is not necessary to assume that she is suddenly going to turn over an entirely new leaf and honestly carry out all hor obligations without chicanery or obstruction? No, local troubles there must always be—the corrupt cannot be made clean in a day, but we have new Treaty rights and satisfactory machinery for immediate redress of its violation. It has not been forced on China—it is the result of negotiation with those who have the power to carry it out, and although the experience of the working of the Tientsin Treaty has not been such as to inspire us with confidence, let it be remembered that that Treaty was made at the point of the bayonet and under very different commercial and political conditions. Tt did not provide in any way for the distribution amongst the Provincial exchequers of the transit duty which was intended to replace the provincial taxes it was to abolish, and it left provincial taxation undefined. These points have evidently been prominent in the minds of the framers of the now Treaty, and I submit that it is easier to check the illegal incidence of a tax which is clearly defined and which under no circumstances can be levied on goods in transit, than it was to deal with the likin barriers.
There is one clause which probably the majority of these present will not approve of, and that is the one dealing with the amount of excise to be levied on machine-made goods manufactur: in China. We have been told however fiat this measure was strongly urged by a powerful section of manufacturers at home, and that it was also insisted upon by the Chinese Government. We know that Mr. Dudgeon "id his best to have it reduced and that he succeeded in red-rieing it from the full import duty and surtax to the import duty and 2/3rds of the surtax. But it still remains a heavy tax and an wnmecessary burden upon native enterprise and development. From an economical standpoint and looking to its effect upon the development of China's natural resources, the policy which dictated such a measure can only be regarded as suicidal. On the other hand, in partial justification of those who framed Sir James Mackay's instructions, be it said that the Chamber of Commerce, representing the Commercial opinions. of all nationalities at Shanghai, proposed in 1896 an excise equal to the amount of the import duty.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.