Reported Offer by Nanking to Kuangtung for Settling Customs Question: Contact with Nanking Frost Our Own Comsroxoerr Canton, Sept. 20.
Forces are being arrayed so that a strong remonstrance may be lodged with the Central Government if. the tong run it persists in making the foreign rice tax purely a national matter. H. O. Tong, the Shanghai Customs Commissioner. had explained to the Kuangtung rulers that the Maritime Customs was to be the sole collectors of all charges and impositions on rice from abroad.
As with all else, smugglers have made heavy inroads into the profits from this source, Swatow and the adjacent coast being the principal! places for the landing of surreptltious cargoes. On paper the monthly Intakings come to $800.000, and for two or three months they were that food, but there has been a falling fff to $500,000. But the customs service if unhampered by the provincial smuggling suppression agency should be able gradually to make this evasion of duly a losing game.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.