SPECIAL REPORTS FOR FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION. 205

bers, and the local courts will even observe these rules between nonmembers.
 Each guild adopts its own standards of weights and
measures. These combinations, or close corporations of traders,
have great influence on all questions. They are able to control all
traffic in their particular fields, and can force all undesirable competitors
 out of the market. All prices are adjusted by them to a
limited ,extent, and the old East India Co. has testified that in
23 years their net loss on British products shipped from England to
Canton was £1,668,103, because of the absolute power given to the
members of the guild merchant at Canton to fix prices, with no
check from free competition.
With the exception of the guilds and their operations, as already
described, there are probably no combinations of buyers of the different
 lines of American goods in this country.
Besides the ownership of railways, as already shown, the Government
 has a complete monopoly of the production and sale of salt in
China. The consumption of salt here amounts to over 1,488,000
tons annually, for which the people pay 81,000,000 taels. The Govsrnment
 received about $60,000,000 Mexican in revenue from this
source in 1914. The retail price of salt has varied from 25 to 60
cash per catty (13 pounds). The importation of foreign salt is
prohibited by treaty.
Foreign combinations in China.—To properly understand this section
 it will be of value to note the following statistics: Directly prior
to the outbreak of the war, when trade was normal, the annual proportion
 of the value of imports into China amounted to 56 per cent
from the British Empire, 5 per cent from Germany, 20 per cent from
Japan, and 6 per cent from the United States. The percentage accredited
 to England is a little high, due to shipments to England and
Hongkong from other countries, and from Here being transshipped
to China. However, the large proportion of the import trade is with
England. Of these four countries, the Japanese had 1,269 firms in
China (mostly small merchants) and 80,219 residents, America had
131 firms and 5,340 residents (mostly missionaries), Germany had
296 firms and 2,949 residents, while the British had 590 firms and
3,966 residents (largely traders). The preponderance of British
influence in the Orient can thus be easily seen.
There are several very powerful combinations of English manufacturers
 and engineers who have great influence over the Chinese
imports. The largest of these is the British Engineers’ Association.
Full details concerning the organization, personnel, and object of
this concern is set forth in the inclosed pamphlets of 1913 and 1914
telling about this association. (NoTe.—For excerpts from these pamphlets
 see pp. 208 to 215 below.—Federal Trade Commission.)
Another of these importers’ syndicates recently formed is the
Chinese Engineers’ Association (Ltd.). This is under the leader:
ship of Mr. Arthur J. Moore Bennett, a man of wide experience in
the commercial Orient, who has become its manager. The London
address of this new association is 88 Fenchurch Street, E.C. Its
principal purpose is to secure an outlet for British-made machinery
and the products of the firms represented, who compose many of the
firms given in the list under the British Engineers’ Association.
Still another of these British importers’ combinations is the Representation
 for British Manufacturers (Ltd.), which company is