Oct. 5.
In a country like China the process of tariff revision—a process which has just been completed after six months' very steady application—is necessarily cumber some. It is cumbersome partly because the tariff is a conventional one, one, that is to say, which is fixed by international agreement at a certain level; partly because the parties to the agreement are at once many and competitive; partly because the delegations representing them are for the most part composed of men who have little technical knowledge of the business in hand. When to these special circumstances is added the fact that, the basis of revision being wholesale market value less a percentage, in respect of a number of commodities wholesale market value is very difficult to ascertain, there are present, it will be agreed, inherent difficulties success in surmounting which is first and foremost a matter for congratulation all-round. Making due allowance for the tricks which, in times so uncertain, values are always liable to play, and for other miscalculations which a detailed examination of the new schedule of duties may possible reveal, congratulation is undoubtedly the right note on which to signalize the completion of the work of revision. China has got what she is entitled to, a range of specific duties based on an effective and not on an imaginary five per cent.: the period over which the revised values were taken—the last three months of 192) and the first three of the present year—was one of their own choosing; her Customs revenue—assuming the addition presently of the 24 per cent. surtax proposed at the Washington Conference—will be very substantially in-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.