Apropos the above subject, a complaint has been made by [the Shanghai-Paoshan Business Association of th treatment their members have received at the hands of tax collectors.
They have consented to pay 43 per cent. of the value of revenue stamps in deference to advices from m tors and in consideration of the fact that an educational fund is being up, in spite of their difficult lion caused by the proximity of their business to the foreign in the settlements. The least offence on the part of their members is! magnified and severely dealt with, while the 'Tax Office pretend not seo to foreign agents selling leigarettes everywhere in the interior, even in front of the Tax Office' itself. They they avoid being ulti they continue under these conditions? After describing how extravagant and wasteful have been the expenses of the Tax Office, and how burdensome Jhas the tax proved to the cigarette merchants, the Association—points jour that during nearly six months since the tax was- introduced, the Government Treasury has benefited only to, the extent of several thousand' dollars, while the mer-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.