28th May.
THE exorbitant claims, moderate and reasonable in some cases but distinctly exorbitant in others, that are being made on China for indemnities are compelling a general search for sources from which the necessary funds may be derived. There are countries with little trade with China that. have made large claims because the securing of a large sam in hand is of far greater importance to them than the future trade of the Empire. There are other nations that have striven to keep down their claims be-ouse they hope to see the trade of inn quickly recover, but the for keeping the concerto} the Powers unbroken obliges them to consent to measures which they must know will do their trade an injury for which the sum to be recovered now will be no real compensation. But not even the desire to maintain the concert should persuade our Government to lose the opportunity which they now have to put our trade with China on a permanently satisfactory footing. Among the sources from which it contemplated to provide the indemnity are an increase in the Customs tariff, and a manipulation of the likin, It has been laid down some time ago by foreign merchants engaged in the China trade that they would make no objection to a reasonable, even a considerable, increase in the Custons tariff, if likin were abolished altogether. Tu this our Government should strictly adhere. It should set its face like a flint against any manipulation of likin, such as confining it to native goods, or collecting it in certain places through the Foreign Customs, Likin as a form of taxation is so essentially bad, that. no manipulation of it can make it to-Jerable; the only admissible course is to do away with it altogether.
Like our own income tax, likin is a modern tax, introduced some fifty years ago for a temporary purpose, to provide funds for the suppression' of the taiping Rebellion; and again like our own income tax, it has been kept on long after its original purpose was satisfied. I's currency i associated with half a century of decay and retrogression everywhere in China except at the treaty ports, and it is as unprofitable to the central government of China as it vexatious to the native trader, strongly deprecate any manipulation of it in connection with the indemnity, because the result would inevitably' be to make ita permanent curse to the country, and so entrench it that future attacks on it by the mercantile comniunity will be defeated beforehand. Its abuses are known and felt everywhere, but some facts which have been brought to our notice with reference to its operations in one province, Szechuan, will show by example what a burden it is on the foreign as well as the native trader.
Sixteen years ago the Chungking Trading Ao. established an agency for the purchase of wool for export to Europeat the Tibetan border marts of Tachienlu and Sungpan. There were some six likin stations between each of these marts and Chungking, but as the total of the duty they demanded amounted only io from two to three per cent, it was not worth while to resist them. In 1886 and subsequently there were anti-Christian riots "in Szechuan, as a consequence of which the Viceroy was called upon to pay very heavy indemnities, and to recoup himself he {doubled the likin on all produce intended for export abroad, and imports of yarn and piece-goods. This drove the firm in question to the use of transit passes, and although successive British Consuls did all they could to get these transit passes respected, so many objections were raised at the likin stations, and so much loss resulted fron: detention of the produce, that the likin had to be paid, extortionate as it The detention, we are told, sometimes quadrupled the actual likin by the facilities it afforded the boa en and mu'eteers to rob the cargo entrust them for transport; and on investigation it turned out that the likin officials were in ne with the thieves, and that at some stations regular provision of hot ware was made, wih which the due weight of the bales of woo! was made up after they had been rubbed. S" li may be adopted in their collection. Merchants coald afford to pay ona scale of fifteen per cent ud valorem on imports and exports if all inland taxation were honestly suppressed and as it must bz remembered that iv would cost the Imperial Maritime Customs no more to collect fifteen per cent than five per cent, any gross increase in the amount they collect will be equivalent to a net increase in inland taxation. A large proportion of this increase niust of course be handed over to the provincial authorities to recompense them for the loss of the inland taxation. Ah coast trade duties shoul be at the same time abolished, and there should be as absolute frow trade throughout China as there ix throughout. the United States. The only sufferers would be the likin officials, and the expansion of trade that wou'd result would soon find them honest employment if they wanted it. We trust that the Ministers of the commercial Powers will not let this opportunity be lost of bringing about the total abolition of all likin and transit dues in Chi It is indispensable to the of trade which we hope will follow the present troubles.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.