To the Editor of the "Norru-Cuina Datty News."
Sir,—Now that the Tariff Revision Committee is about, to sit, I venture to express my views on the subject of the new tariff to be exacted, having observed some the serious blunders made in the last tariff.
As a business mam who is not on any of the Committees or subcommittees appointed to consider the revision of the tariff, I must perforce rely on what I have seen done in the last tariff, and I cannot but fear that similar errors will be repeated again.
I would draw the attention of all concerned before it is too late, that much harm may be done to commerce, and on the other hand much revenue lost to China if nontechnical persons are going to have the last say in the matter of fixing classifiers. I am prepared to hear, in justification, that '"'one balances the other." Such reasoning seems unbusiness-like. The tariff should aim at something more equitable. It has struck me that the apparent endeavours of the last Revision Committee was, erroneously, to simplify it and make as concise a work as possible of the tariff.
I am at one with whosoever lays stress upon the desirability for a self-explanatory tariff free from ambiguity and based upon rational and accepted classifiers.
Of course I quite understand that unfortunate China has to submit' political influences which in such an important transaction as the tariff-making brings to bear all its forces, and the Powers will play among themselves the usual game of "give and take," as it was done at the last revision, China's revenue hence suffering and also the brunt of these national mismanagements.
I could give a number of such actual glaring errors on the last tariff, but it would take too much of your valuable space. I will, though, for the sake of argument pick up for instance:—machine-made cotton embroidered edgings or insertions, stockings, socks, knitted clothing, ete., ete., which in the tariff is to pay by the picul! It is obvious that a picul of high grade embroideries, etc., is bound to be worth considerably more than a similar weight of the lower grade.
Equally "tobacco leaf" imported into China, varies in value from Tls. 16 to Tls. 160 per picul and the duty is uniformally at Tls. 1 10 per picul. I leave it to the interested to work out the difference in percentage that is charged. And yet the tariff is supposed to be based on a 5 per cent. ad valorem duty!
These are only some instances 10 which the last tariff is actually unfair to the consumer and as well as to the Customs revenue. Averages are simpler, certainly, but in such instances the consumer who gannet afford a high class article has to pay a more excessive duty than the one who can afford a better article and who actually
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.