quite the reverse of suffering from It. There must be some sympathy with the provincial officials if they are inspired solely with the desire to put their three years industrial expansion scheme on to a paying basis as quickly as possible. Thy general finances of the province, testified by the recent slump of its bank-notes, are well enough known. They are not sufficiently strong to support an ambitious scheme of expansion which requires large capital expenditure. It is, therefore, obvious on the face of it that quick returns are imperative. But should those quick returns be achieved at the expense of the importer. who is, incidentally, generally a foreign merchant, and the consumer, who is almost invariably a Chinese? Until the provincial scheme is sufficient to meet the needs of at, least a large proportion of provineial consumers, is it right or proper to penalize the remainder?
If this were a matter of national policy it might be sufficient to ask the question and let the answer be supplied of itself. The function of government being to ensure the best for the people governed, no Tesponsible body of officials would embark upon any scheme calculate ed to cause hardship to a portion of the population for a short period without being certain in their own minds that the ultimate result will be of benefit. In the case of Kuangtung, however, the question of national policy' does not arise. It is provincial policy which is being put into effect—provincial to the exclusion of nearly every national objective. If proof were needed, it would be necessary to cite no more than the strange behaviour of the Canton authorities in conniving at, if not actively assisting in, defrauding the national government of its rightful revenue. Stories of how Kuangtung warships are employed in importing needed cargoes so as to evade the Maritime Customs have reached Shanghai with such persistency that readers here may be pardoned if they believe that the smoke occasioned by these reports could not exist without a certain amount of fire. These reports, however. aside, there is no doubt whatever that many classes of goods and materials needed for the further~ ance of the Kuangtung three years plan, are allowed into the port without paying a cent of duty. If the three years plan were a national one there could be no legitimate complaint. against this. But it is not: From reports received, it appears that Canton officials are the principal shareholders in the factories founded in carrying out the plan. And just there the suspicion creeps in that all is not well.
At the present moment negotiations are proceeding to clear up some of the discrimination of which the Canton authorities are alleged to have been guilty. Foreign firms have been put into a most difficult position. The Infant Chinese industries the high taxation is designed to protect cannot possibly supply the demand. Yet those who can supply this demand and have the organization ready are prevented from doing so by unfair levies and re~ bates. This is not an ingenious argument in favour of immediate concessions to foreign interests, though by treaty and all the standards of international justice those concessions should be immediately made. It makes the point that so long as it is possible for the authorities of any province to tax so arbitrarily for their own ends perfectly legitimate interests which serve the people of that province, so long will the Chinese government find it dificult to attract foreign investment and credit which are necessary for the success of the much larger national development plan which everyone hopes to sce succeed. The difficulties of the National Government in dealing with the Canton authorities are not 2ver= Tooked. 'Nor is the penchant of the Canton authorities for creating embarrassments for the Central Government forgotten. Here, how~ ever, is a situation which' may involve the major issues of Chinese credit and reliability and it seems, therefore, that the Central Government should exert every pressure to see that the prevalent injustice
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.