In short it is not the Canton tax, as such, that anyone obtects to, it the precedent which it establish jes for high-handed encroachment upon all foreign rights by officials, ry chiefs and local govern-that are wholly unchecked responsible authority and Jare, on the average, much less fit. ted to exercise any kind of cantref over foreigners and their interests than were the Imperial Governments with which the treaties were originally made.—The dangers to which the establishment of such a precedent in China would expose us oom up in the minds of most diainterested observers much bigger than any advantage that would come of the immediate resumption of trade with Canton, As Peking sees it, international Acceptance of the Canton tariff to relieve the economic strain upon the Canton merchants would be like Jeutting a dyke in flood time to water 'a parched garden,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.