Sth Tan mentioned yesterday the action taken by the German Consul-General and the German merchants here in reference to Treaty Revision, and it is only fair to the General Chamber of Commerce to explain that the whole question was taken up by that body and threshed out by " Revision Committee appointed by the Chamber of Commerce and China Association in 1896. The work of that Committee was extended over six months, and the result was the production of a series of papers which are just as applicable to the conditions of to-day as to those existing four years ago. Moreover the Chamber and the Association have exhaustively dealt with many subjects not touched on in the German programme, such as River Conservancy, Irregular Appropriation of Tonnage Dues, Free Movement of Grain, Salt Monopoly, Inland Residence, ete., ete. all the papers being filed with the Legations at Peking. If our representatives want guidance in dealing with the commercial clauses of the treaties now to be made with China, they will find everything they want to know in these papers, very much more carefully and completely considered than in the German programme, a translation of which we published yesterday, So much has happened in four years, that what the Chamber of Commerce did in 1896 is forgotten, but the work it did is nevertheless of permanent value.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.