Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/137

goods alike whatever general municipal taxes were leviable upon the latter. In short, the British Government regarded likin as a municipal tax, and therefore excluded it from the scope of the treaties so long as it did not constitute a discrimination against foreign goods in favour of native. Other Western Powers declined to endorse that benevolent interpretation of the treaties, and the great majority of the foreign merchants doing business with China refused to endorse it, their views being partially influenced by a conviction, founded on practical experience, that the development of Chinese commerce, whether domestic or foreign, was fatally checked by the likin system. On the other hand they were equally convinced that to abolish likin was beyond the strength of the Chinese Government, and that no promise obtained from Peking in that sense could be implemented in the face of provincial opposition. There were solid reasons to be sceptical. For when, in deference to untiring pressure and remonstrance from the foreign representatives, transit certificates, as provided by the treaties, began to have practical efficacy, the Chinese local officials quickly showed themselves equal to the occasion by reviving an impost called loti shui, which signifies either a grower's tax or a terminal tax, and is levied upon goods either before their transit has commenced or after it has terminated, thus hitting both exports and imports. The convenient fiction is that since the transit