"Foreign Devils": $1,000,000,000

China entered the New Year boldly last week, put into effect without warning a new tariff estimated to increase the living costs of foreigners in China by 30%.

They will have to pay dear for whiskey, wines, silks, jewelry and beer. The tariff on imported cigarets was upped some 600%, should prove prohibitive to all except Americans who must have Camels, Luckies etc.; Englishmen who must have Players, Abdullas. With great astuteness the Chinese Government upped their tariff so suddenly that the "foreign devils" had no chance to lay in advance supplies of their necessities -- luxuries to Chinamen.

Naturally most of the foreign devils and all foreign correspondents were furious. An exception was U. S. Commercial Attache Julean Arnold (he and other diplomatic folk can import their luxuries duty free). With admirable tact Mr. Arnold pointed out that China has only recently come to the end of a period of customs tutelage by the Great Powers. For some 80 years they held her down to a general ad valorem duty of only 5%. Now that the young Nationalist Government has squirmed out from under this galling yoke, China might reasonably be expected to do much worse than she did last week -- especially as in Oriental lands taxation is usually based upon no other consideration than what the traffic will bear.

"The new tariff act," declared Attache Arnold impressively, "indicates more consideration of China's economic condition than has any previous tariff legislation in China's history. The new tariff is calculated on a genuine protection theory, and not merely to increase revenue."

China's cigaret industry will chiefly receive protection, the foreign cigaret being virtually excluded, the foreign tobacco leaf continuing to enter under relatively trifling duty.

Enter Canada. Wheat and flour, necessities of the Chinese masses, continue to enter China free.* Tremendous was the sensation in Vancouver, Canada, last week when the Vancouver Province "revealed" that:

"The Hon. Herbert M. Marler, head of Canada's embassy to the orient, has been sent to China on a great diplomatic and commercial mission. It is entirely possible that, arising from his visit, Canada will sell 100,000,000 bushels of wheat. . . .

"Behind the wheat deal is a great project, initiated by the Hon. H. H. Stevens, Canada's Minister of Trade & Commerce, for the granting of a $1,000,000,000 loan to China, designed to reinstate the values of silver all through the orient and finally to place China on her feet so completely that she will become a huge and profitable market for British, Canadian and American goods.

"The Hon. R. B. Bennett [Prime Minister of Canada, has] merely hinted at the giant plan in hand . . . intimated that some credit arrangement might have to be made to enable China to buy Canadian wheat in large quantities. [He has not attempted] to outline the very interesting and stupendous plan which is now being discussed in London, New York, Washington and Ottawa for the rehabilitation of silver and the general reorganization of oriental trade and markets.

"Generally, the plan is to call together the five or six leading war lords of China, who presently are fighting among themselves and maintaining armies totaling 3,000,000 men living by pillage of the population. The project is to sell the Chinese leaders the idea that everyone would be infinitely better off if the Chinese armies were turned into industrial units, carrying out great public works.

"If a semblance of peace can thus be attained, then Britain and the United States would jointly arrange a loan of a thousand million dollars to be spent in opening China by railways and highways and by lending support to various schemes to bring about an era of orderly civilization throughout the nation."

Seasoned observers took all this calmly, suspecting that the Vancouver Province had been driven to its "revelation" by the Vancouver Sun. Few weeks ago the Sun's dynamic Publisher,R. J. Cromie began a campaign to restore World Prosperity by urging the U. S. to "take a loss as England has" -- i. e. to cancel the Allied War debt. Keynote:

"To a Yankee, as to every new or primitive people, it's a disgrace to take a loss, or take a licking; whether in sport or finance or morals, the American demands the impossible 100 per cent, perfection: he simply must win. . . . England's greatness was built by taking losses. . . . When colonies and nations and states, including the southern United States, were unable to pay . . . England, like a big businessman dealing with a customer, did not get sore and demand the last penny. . . ."

East and West. Second step in Publisher Cromie's plan, after cancelling War debts, was that the former debtors and creditors should cooperate to develop the Asiatic market, release the potentially limitless buying power of the East, thus restore boundless prosperity to the West.

Should citizens of the West become West-conscious (as Vancouver seems to have become), should they sink their rival ries and go as a unit to the rescue of the East, a new commercial era of unimaginable splendor would unquestionably dawn -- unless the East should refuse to cooperate.

Just now the East is becoming extremely "East-conscious." In China, India and Russia millions of Asiatics are evolving the notion that theirs is the dominant hemisphere of the future.

* The China Famine Relief, No. 205 East 42nd St., New York City, announced last week that 8,000,000 Chinese have starved to death in the three years just ended, that 2,000.000 are expected to starve to death in 1931.

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