"Norrn Caixa Daly News The article under the caption "Famine Heliet Customs Surtax Funds" dated June dth as repro: soco 22S soy let Gun nterationl Femin chase the lit ation of is a shameful proceeding: be Pome peo end amin! ale it rear of essd Sz soe fe tee Commission needs to say is that it thes of us BevindaGonmltees its. Provincial Commi te the Chinese Government and the think acceptcbie, a8 it would dot Flomatie Corps in any way,
any group that desires to do charltable work in Chingy. but' has not the necessary. knowledge, facilities and organization. If. recommendations have been made to" employ rely the Commission and its Proial Committees, which are well tied agencies, such action may not be unwise from a practicable buslness viewpoint.
The article laments the holding up of the surtax funds because of the disagreement whether the Com= mission or some other bureau should do to the distribution. No one re-grots the delay of the eustax more than the Commission, a8 its inabilie ty to respond to the urgent calls from various parts of the country for relief funds, is 'a very. trying feature, The Commission his no power or voice in respect of surtax. matters, It can only. hope. that those, who can help in reducing the delay, would do so, s0 that the funda may be speedily placed in thi of those most competent to di them, The assertion in the art the Commission has no status and should not act in the distribution of the funds and further on, the reverse assumption that the Provincial Come aittees(Chinese and foreigners) are in a position to say how the mone €y shall be spent are contradictory. The present Commission is come Posed of two members of each of 32 Provincial Committees, They were appointed ut the Inst annual meet ing that took place in March, To deny that the whole has not what ita component parte have, is what ray be termed reduction to algebral=
The statement contained in. the article that the Shanghai Chinese and foreigners contribute more than tone half of the surtax money not quite accurate ay the statistics will not bear out th ment. Shanghai trade in the. best of years has been about one-thivel of the whole country, Tt should remembered, however, that what the ports pay by way of duties, surtax ele is eventually repuld from the interior.
It fs elated that Shanghat, bee cause of the heavy contribution It makes to the surtax funds, should have a say as to its distribution, Mow about Hankow, Canton, Dairen, Tientsin and Kinochow which. also contribute considerably? Would it not be better that instead of complicating the issue, we leave the whole matter to the discretion of the Chinese authorities and the Diplomatic Corps whose functions ave to attend to matters of this sort?
There is the charge in the are tide: that the Commission's butting {in and introducing red tape rogue tions are complicating and delay ing the jesus of the funds and fare there that the Commivsion is. delic berately holding up' the allocation of the money. It is hardly necessary to repeat these unwarrantable alleations, ar enough has bene said the foregoing. to make the position of the Commission clear to all who fate, not prejudiced.
Emphasis has been given n the article that the Provinc tees are well able to handle the dis tribution of the funds without tie that form the Commission have, through their representatives, expressly ure ged that there should be uniformity. in operation and for that purpose adopted a constitution and at their Fecent annual meeting it was agreed as a guiding principle that funds spent should be made, as far possible, returnable to create a revolving fund that could be repeated-used for engineering and other works that would have a tendency to reduce the floods, fai ete, that seems so perennial, All the. Committees are following this principle in their local operations. and should their funds be increased to enable them to undertake larger and more comprehensive schemes, there can be no doubt that their combined results, after say 10 years operation, would be very considerable to the good of China and all who live in the land, On the other hand if there should ele it is more likely that these Committees would cease, after a time, to exist for lack of a policy, ea: operation, and mutual "encourage:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.