To the Editor of the "Nontu-Cuina Daly News."
Siny—T read with considerable i terest Kunikos's article in to-day's Paper with regard to the statement. cly Nanking that the above tax is to be abolished on January 1, 1951. Truly, one read this news in your paper on Wednesday with a gasp of astonishment remembering as the writer does the immense ramific tion of this curse of trade among the Chinese all over this great land.
To imagine for a single that the hordes of petty off and down this immense la pay any attention to this lates order from Nanking is asking the fantastic.
Every one of these officials—whether Lig or small—have paid for: their office and most assuredly they will never relax the hold on same until and unless they are compensated, There is not a man living in this land but longs for the day when not only Likin but all the numberless taxes imposed by Tom, Dick and Harry all over the country shall be a, memory of the past but to imagi plished in less than two weeks asking the miraculous.
It would take months of preparation to get these orders to every likin station throughout China and to. make arrangements with each and every office for the change, Further. the writer endorses all that is written anent the trip to, Nanchang for he went through exactly the same experience when ho was last there. It was only the other day he was recounting his experiences in China with reference to Passports—and he made the statement that on that trip arg while in Nanchang (a city he knows Well) he had to show his passport more times than he had shown it in twenty years in travelling in provinces. The officials were quite polite and when he told them this fact they merely smiled and said they were sorry but the orders were very strict indeed and they were held personally responsible for all foreigners' while in their district -and please would I help them, No ohe who has not moved about in the interior can Fave any idea of the numberless ways in which the local officials exact tax after tax not only from the occasional foreigner but from the natives who are, after all is said and done, by far the greatest sufferers as. they; never know when they have' finished paying taxes on their goods and taxes that they cannot avoid paying as they are entirely in the hands of the officials who have ways and means of securing payment.
Tt goes without saying that every business mam, whether native or foreigner, desires emphatically the abolition of these obnoxious taxes Dut they are not going to be abolished by a stroke of the pen, It is going to be a long and difficult business and no one knows this better than Nanking. One is compelled to admire the gesture but one doubts extremely its outcome in actual experience, Shanghai Dee. 22, 1930,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.