The Postal Commissioner at Shanghai is not the servant of the nking Government, but the subordinate and representative of the Ca-Director-General at Peking. As long as there is.no Central Government in China his duty must, it seems to us, be to fulfil the engagements formally entered, into on behalf of China, at Wa-
Ishington, on February, 1, 1922, No Chinese authority, at Nanking. or otherwise, has any jurisdiction over a British newspaper. And. there is no pretence that the order issued by Nanking and meekly carried out by Mr. Shields at. Shanghai is based on legal or ai other legitimate grounds. A Nat king telegram merely charges our contemporary with having fae bricated: and published news items with the view of rousing distrust. fand causing dissension," and with-cut any pretence of legality, orders the Shanghai Post Office to stop the transmission by post of the Paper.
Under this arbitrary procedure it would be quite possible for the Chinese Post Office, which by reason of its affiliation to the International Postal Union has assumed Delegate expressed his willingness, to agree to the Chinese demand subject to the following conditions.
1. That all other foreign nations now maintaining Post Offices in China withdraw them; 2. That the Chinese postal system should function well enough to make a return to the present solemn international obligations, to detain the correspondence of any individual or firm against whom any of the Nanking busybodies had a grudge. A postal service 0 conducted does not comply with China's international pledges. And it is to be hoped that this attempt to tamper with the Chinese Postal service will be met with offes '3. That the present Ca-Director retained resistance by all the The Japanese Delegation was not satisfied "of the safety of communication in China" but fi agreed after placing on record its desire that a suitable number of But the conduct of the Shanghai Postal Com "experienced Japanese postal off-cers be engaged by China." Eventually a resolution was adopted whereby it was agreed that foreign, postal agencies in China other than those "specifically provided by Treaty" should be withdrawn on or before January 1, 1923, subject to the following conditions:
'"(a) That an efficient Chis ese postal service is maintained; (b) That an assurance given by the Chinese Government, that they contemplate no change Shields is no more justified holding up a British newspaper. on which postage has been duly prepaid than in accepting orders from Nanking to issue $5 money-forders on Peking for ten cents, or to pay out $10 to one for every postal order cashed in Shanghai.
But the principles at take are just the same in the Customs House, not only in Shanghai, but in other ports in China. The Shanzhai Customs Commissioner has lowed his Customs-House to be used ret only for the collection of illegal surtaxes, but also for the imposition of illegal tonnage dues. Im Tientsin we have seen a system of blackmail applied within the Customs branch of the Bank of Communications for the collection of illegal carpet taxes, these and similar cases. elsewhere the excuse invariably given. is that the Customs has no further interest in the matter once the duty memos based on the Treaty tariff have been filled in. For what happens at the bank, even—though situated within the Customs Compound, the Chinese Superintendent of Customs, not the Foreign Com-joner, ix responsible,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.