Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/138

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CHINA

certificate gives exemption against transit dues only, it cannot cover goods before or after transit. Confronted by such manœuvres the foreign merchant feels persuaded that Chinese local officials would always find a means of evading any engagement made by the Central Government for the abolition of likin, and that the Central Government has no power to impose its will upon them. It must be confessed, however, that this distrust existed long before the loti-shui object lesson. It existed in 1869 and it existed in 1876. It showed itself then in the form of an inveterate objection to any treaty stipulation commuting transit dues for a fixed increase of customs duties, and it shows itself equally to-day by refusing to endorse the following proposal, formulated by British commissioners for revising the commercial treaty and endorsed by the chief local officials of China—the viceroys and the governors:—

To abolish throughout the Chinese Empire all internal taxation of whatsoever kind or description, whether imperial, provincial, local, or municipal, on merchandise and products, whether native or foreign, whether for import, export, or for consumption within the Empire, and the Chinese Government engages that all offices and stations of every kind and description for the levying of taxation on merchandise, except the Imperial Maritime Customs and land-frontier Custom Houses, shall be permanently abolished.

In return for which wholesale reform, a reform of incalculable benefit to China's commerce, the

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