Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/109

 In the case of Tsingtao it has been proved beyond a doubt that, since the Japanese military occupation, opium has been introduced as military stores on such an immense scale as to give the authorities a royalty of several million pounds sterling with which immense tracts of land round Kiaochow Bay have been purchased, so that no matter what the Peace Treaty may say regarding evacuation and handing back to China the German lease, Japan will absolutely control this outlet to a crowded hinterland, and thus do much to secure her commercial supremacy for all time.

Now if the free nations of the world desire that a vastly increased Chinese trade shall assist in wiping-out the ill-effects of the European cataclysm which has destroyed the accumulated wealth of half a century, the establishment of a Chinese Zollverein—that is, complete Free Trade within the limits of Chinese territory, with a complete abolition of all provincial and coastwise duties and a complete checking of present abuses—must be secured. At a time when Japanese trade, in spite of a heavy Protectionist tariff, has risen to nearly two thousand million gold dollars a year, or more than thirty gold dollars per head of population, it is monstrous that Chinese trade should amount