The announcement that an attempt is to be made at Home to reduce wages proportionately to *|the falling prices is interesting tion of the- Customs surplus, No friend of China would favour and. hopeful. Some time ago a which we reproduce in full to-ay, is skilfully argued, and so framed as to elicit all possible public sympathy for the South-vern request, especially in respect of the abolition of gambling. By what we can learn, this claim is no more than the truth. For the time being at any rate, gambling has been put down so severely that the shops are afraid even to sell Chinese dominoes. And for this act Canton certainly deserves credit and favourable consideration for any feasible request. The—splitting up of the Customs revenue and machinery, however, is quite another matter. But on this subject Canton has a trump card to play. If the Diplomatic Body were agreeable to allowing the Southwestern Government a share in the Customs surplus from July, 1919, till March, 1920, when Dr. Wu Ting-fang fled from Canton, they have no logical reason for withholding it now.
The answer is that the Dip-Jomatic Body, in this matter, are guided not by logie but by opportunism. They stopped the paying over of the surplus in March, 1920, partly because of the split in the Southwestern Federation which Dr. Wu Ting-fang's departure for Shanghai connoted: and partly, no doubt, because of the legal proceedings taken against Dr. Wu by his former associates in Canton for the recovery of the Customs money. These two events gave the Dipplomatic Body a welcome chance of putting an end to an_arrangement: which they should never have permitted; and by this latest decision it cannot but be hoped they will abide, whether it be in respect of Customs or Salt, Canton or Manchuria. The inconsistency of the diplomatic action cannot unfortunately be denied. But this is of less moment than that the Customs should be saved from being split up into little pits. For that is precisely what Canton demands. The memorial argues ingeniously that as it is the de facto situation which has be faced, and as Peking has no real control over the provinces nominally under its jurisdiction so more local self-government tha exists, for example, in Amer The provinces might be self-governing in urely local matters, but they would remain bound together in a federation to which all woul and national raven nes for national purposes would continue to be collected and administered by the Central Government.
But Canton's conception of provincial autonomy means splitting up the country into an undefined number of princedoms or republics. And when talking of de facto situations, let it not be forgotten that the one vital financial i fact in China to-day where all else is fluid is the stal bility and coher ence of the'Cu is toms and Salt Gabelle, and that this must be defended at all costs.
If one province tampers with their solidity unchecked, the whole fabric will very soon crumble to nothingness As our readers recollect, the re~ jection by the Legations of this memorial was followed by an announcement that the Canton Government would henceforth treat all the Customs in its domain as under its jurisdiction and} that it would take posses ion of all the revenues accruing, duly remitting to the Inspector-General its shave of what was necessary, for foreign loan service. That this declaration goes far beyond what the memorial asks writer in the "Fortnightly" aid that what the trade unions really ought to press for is lower, not and prices in cor-importance of the ability of foreign markets to buy, that is undoubtedly a sound principle. On the other hand one sees with oon-cern the proposal to commit the Government to a State dole for unemployment. The only possible way of achieving this is by a scheme of national insurance with regular contributions by the insured. Why should the artisan class alone be thus cosseted? - We write with no lack of sympathy for the continual fear of unemployment in which they live. But they are far better off than the clerk dosa Their wages, in employment, are higher. their insecurity of tenure is no greater, and they have unions to protect them, which clerks do not have. Mbreover these unemployment doles are open to the grossest abuse, even encouraging it. as was found in the case of war workers, to whom tha Yovernment was making weekly allowances after the war, pending their obtaining other employment. The common mistake nowadays is to look on the Treasury as a sort of lucky-bag into which everybody can dip without having immediate and bad effects on themselves in edmmon with everyone else.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.