128 



CHINA. 



Liang-Kwang, and Yun-Kwe groups of provinces 

 and over S/eciiuen, while each province has its Sun- 

 Fu, or governor. These officers and the subordi- 

 nate local officials are almost independent of the 

 Imperial Government, which has little to do with 

 the people in general, but the local administrators 

 are held accountable by the imperial authorities 

 for their manner of administration, and may be re- 

 moved at any time and degraded in ollicial rank or 

 punished even with decapitation for wrongdoing, 

 while on the other hand a virtuous and successful 

 administration brings rewards. 



Area and Population. The area of the 

 provinces of China proper is estimated at 1,336,841 

 square miles and their total population at 386,000,- 

 000. The dependencies are : Manchuria, with an 

 area of 362,310 square miles and about 7,500,000 

 inhabitants ; Mongolia, with an area of 1,288,000 

 square miles and 2,000,000 inhabitants; Tibet, 

 with an area of 651,500 square miles and 6,000,000 

 inhabitants; Jungaria, with an area of 147,950 

 square miles and 600,000 inhabitants ; and Eastern 

 Turkestan, with an area of 431,800 square miles 

 and 580,000 inhabitants. The island of Formosa, 

 having an area of 14,980 square miles, and a popu- 

 lation of 3.600,000, was ceded to Japan by the terms 

 of the treaty of peace ratified on May 8, 1895, and 

 was formally transferred on June 2, 1895. The pop- 

 ulation of Pekin, the seat of the Imperial Govern- 

 ment, is variously estimated between 500,000 and 

 1.650,000. Canton is supposed to have 2,000.000 in- 

 habitants; Fuchow, 1,000,000; Tientsin, 950,000; 

 Hangchow, 800,000 ; Shanghai, 400,000 ; and Ning- 

 po, 255,000. These are the most important of the 

 treaty ports. There are cities in the interior that 

 have an enormous population. The foreign popula- 

 tion of the treaty ports at the end of 1894 was 9,350, 

 of whom 3,989 were British, 1,294 Americans, 807 

 French, 780 Portuguese, 767 Germans, 380 Span- 

 iards, 356 Swedes and Norwegians, 253 Japanese, 

 206 Italians, 123 Danes, 106 Russians, and 289 of 

 other nationalities. In 1895 the foreign residents 

 increased to 10,091, of whom 4,084 were British, 

 1,325 Americans, 875 French, 812 Germans, 805 

 Portuguese, and 2,190 of other nationalities. 



Finances. The revenues of the Imperial Gov- 

 ernment are not published, except those derived from 

 the customs, which are collected under European su- 

 pervision. Herr von Brandt estimates the total nor- 

 mal revenue at 100,000,000 haikwan taels, equivalent 

 before 1874 to $161,000,000 in gold, but in July, 

 1896, to $81,900,000 only, owing to the depreciation 

 of silver. The receipts from the various sources, 

 according to this estimate, are as follow : Maritime 

 customs, including inland duty on foreign opium, 

 23,000,000 taels ; land tax, 35,000,000 taels ; inland 

 transit duties, 12,000,000 taels; native customs and 

 duty on native opium, 10,000,000 taels ; salt mono- 

 poly, 10,000.000 taels ; sale of titles and brevet rank, 

 5,000,000 taels ; rice tribute, 3,000,000 taels ; licenses 

 and other items, 2,000,000 taels. The expenses of 

 the Manchu Government at Pekin are about 7,000,- 

 000 taels a year; expenses of the court, 1,000,000 

 taels; cost of the frontier armies, 5,000,000 taels. 

 About 2,000,000 taels a year are paid for the regula- 

 tion of the Yellow river. The land and salt tax 

 and other revenues, except the maritime customs 

 revenue, are collected by the provincial authorities, 

 and the bulk of the revenues are applied to their 

 own expenses. The Imperial Government receives 

 no fixed proportion of these taxes, but makes a req- 

 uisition each year upon the moro prosperous prov- 

 inces for about t lie same amount in normal times, 

 while fro:, the poor provinces it demands 



no contributions. The cost of the troops, except 

 the frontier irarrisons, is defrayed by the provinces, 

 as well u - ' be salaries of the civil service, the main- 



tenance of the river and canal flotillas, and what- 

 ever is spent on public works. The land tax was 

 fixed once for all by a fundamental law about a 

 century and a half old. The salt tax is practically 

 unalterable. The likin, or transit duty, is deter- 

 mined by the local authorities, and is capriciously 

 and arbitrarily changed to suit their exigencies. 

 The Government agreed in the Chefoo convention 

 to exempt imports from likin on which 2-j per cent, 

 duty is paid on entry in addition to the 5-per-cent. 

 customs duty. But some of the governors refuse to 

 be bound by this agreement, and still levy likin on 

 goods that have paid the commutation, as well as 

 on all the products that pass through the likin bar- 

 riers, which are often not more than ten miles apart. 

 The receipts of the maritime customs amounted in 

 1894 to 22,523.605 taels, of which 6,546,299 taels 

 were collected on imports, 8,820.012 taels on exports, 

 5,050,303 taels on foreign opium, 1,203,458 taels 

 from lighterage, 479,635 taels for tonnage, and 423,- 

 898 taels from transit dues. The customs revenue 

 for 1895 was 21,385,000 taels, the decrease being due 

 to the port of Niuchuang yielding no revenue dur- 

 ing the Japanese occupation, and the cessation of 

 the revenue from the treaty ports of Formosa upon 

 the cession of that island to Japan. Making allow- 

 ance for these losses, the revenue exceeded that of 

 any previous year. The opium duty, which amount- 

 ed to 6,197,906 taels in 1891, was only 4,104,145 

 taels in 1895. 



The expenses of the Japanese war and the war 

 indemnity of 200,000,000 kuping taels, about $161,- 

 000,000, with the indemnity of 30,000,000 kuping 

 taels for the evacuation of the Liaotang peninsula, 

 burdened the Chinese Government for the first time 

 with a large debt. Before the war the only debts 

 outstanding were a German loan contracted in 1888 

 at 5 per cent., of which 3,500,000 marks remained 

 unpaid ; a loan of 10,000,000 taels obtained from 

 the Hong-Kong Bank in 1879 at 7 per cent. ; and 

 5,000,000 advanced by different banks between 

 1892 and 1895. All these debts are secured on the 

 customs revenue. After the war the Imperial Gov- 

 ernment obtained the Russo-French loan, amount- 

 ing to about $77,000.000, on which 4 per cent, in- 

 terest is paid. In 1896 the Anglo-German loan of 

 16,000,000, or $77,866,000 was contracted at 5 per 

 cent. This makes the total present indebtedness 

 $187,900,000, on which $8,388,000 interest must be 

 paid annually. The Russo-French loan was guar- 

 anteed by the Russian Government. The Anglo- 

 German loan, which was taken by the syndicate on 

 March 12, 1896, at the contract price of 94, was not 

 guaranteed by any government, but was made a 

 charge on the customs revenue that was not already 

 pledged, and protected by a stipulation that the 

 present administration of the maritime customs 

 shall remain unchanged. 



The only official coin is the copper cash, of which 

 11 are equal to a cent in United States money. 

 The ordinary medium of exchange is sycee i. e., 

 silver of a certain fineness that is weighed, not 

 counted. A silver dollar of the same size as the 

 United States dollar or the Japanese yen has been 

 coined at the new mint in Canton since 1890, and 

 is current everywhere by imperial decree, but it 

 has not come into general use. Payments are ac- 

 tually made in bullion by weight. The liang or 

 tael, which is the standard, varies in different parts 

 of the empire. The haikwan or customs tael is lfc 

 ounce of pure silver. The Government in July, 

 1896, announced the intention of reforming the na- 

 tional currency by introducing a uniform coin and 

 unit of value equivalent to the Mexican dollar. 

 The copper cash has not been coined extensively for 

 many years, owing to the fact that it costs now a 

 tael and a third in silver to coin a tael's worth at 



