Peking, January 17.
The Canton Government proposes that it should receive the Customs funds collected in the South, retain the 13 per cent. which has hitherto been set aside by the Customs administration for the Southwest, and remit the. balance to Peking.—Reuter.
Canton, Jan. 18.
The Military Government has ordered that the Maritime Customs Service functioning in the provinces under its jurisdiction will be subject to its orders and control on and after February 1. In arriving at this decision, the Government states, it was influenced by the following facts and conditions:
Firstly, that the action of the Government was justified by right. The Customs service is one of the Government services, and since the Military Government exercises absolute control, de facto as well as de jure, over all administrative and financial affairs in the Constitutional provinces, it considers it an anomaly and absurdity that the Customs service should function in these provinces under the orders and authority of Peking and collect from them revenue which is diverted to uses elsewhere which are "detrimental to the interests of the country.""
Secondly. the Military Government, recognizing the efficient organization of the Customs service and the good work it has rendered in China, holds to.the policy that the change of control from the authority of Peking to the Military Government will not in the least affect the present personnel who acknowledge its authority, nor the rules of the service.
As the Customs revenue has been hypothecated at various times for foreign obligations. it is not intended that the interests of cre Mors should be in any way jeopardized. The revenue from the Southwestern provinces will bear a proportionate share of this burden which will form. as_hitherto. a first charge upon it.—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.