With the termination of official smuggling and the assumption of control of Kwangtung by the Nationa! Government, there has been a direction of the revenues derived from Customs duties, but smuggling continues. practically' unabated. In spite of the increase in the Maritime Customs revenue during 1938 '$3089,424.25 over. 1035. smuggling in the Canton-Kowloon area does nol seem {o have decreased to any considerable extent, Although Canion and Kowloon are independent Customs administrative areas, actually they are only "two ports of the same unit. Practically all the goods paying duty at Kowloon bre bound for Canton or at least pass through Canton for places in the Interior. For example, all junks and towed barges bound for Canton stop at the Island of Taishan and pay duty to the Kowloon Customs there Therefore It is necessary to add the neressed_ returns of the Canton Customs of $1,300,296.76 and the increased returns of the Kowloon sec. tion of $1,77413749 in order to get an accurate picture of the statistics the unit area.
The main articles smuggled into this "area continue to be sugar kerosene, matches, artificial sill piece goods and artifelal silk yarn The problem is especially complex in the Canton-Kowloon section be~ cause of the proximity to foreign possessions, and the" geographical ature of the delta region. Within a short distance from Canton are Rritish Hongkong, Portuguese Macao and French Kwangchowwan. All of these places form convenient bases for smuggling activities where the smugglers can operate unhindered Although the foreign governments teem to be making no. effort to prevent this smuggling, it need not be s9, as evidenced in the case of British ce-operation with the Chinese ernment in suppressing of silver smuggling.
An International Game should not be imagined that this policy of winking at smuggling into Relghbouring countries is by" any means unique. It is one of the international games played the world ove Vor example, during the Prohibition era in the United States, the Ameri-jeans were anxious to buy foreign liquor and British Jamaica in thy West Indies as well as Canada served jes principal smuggling bases. This feccasioned no surprise but rather was accepted as the thing to be ox pected. China can hardly hope for different treatment from Britain Grance, Portugal or even Japan. There is, however, the important dit ference of extraterritoriality which the other powers have not had to tolerate.
In addition to its closeness to for~ eign possession, the entire Canton-Kowloon area is honeycombed with [small coves and inlets, so that almost any place along the entire coast can serve as a landing place for the smugglers. As the Statistical Secretary stated in the annual Customs Report in 1934. "The growth londestine trade was most noticeable at first in South China, with Hongkong, Macao and Kwangchowwan as principal smuggling bases," and section has continued to be a smug-Bling centre ever since.
An added incentive to the smug-glor in this are is that he makes a double prof, for in addition to avoiding the Customs tariff he also evades local taxation. The regular procedure is for both of these taxes be pald at the port of entry and then the goods are supposedly free from further taxation.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.