July 30, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



105 



discovery worth the mention since the time of 

 Mill. Ideas may have been born to those who 

 have spent the night-watches with tliis niethod, 

 but, if so, no one ever heard the children peep. 



There are other protests which might be added. 

 Economy is not an independent study ; it is a 

 dependent subordinate study, which first finds its 

 true place when framed into the study of society 

 as a whole. But says Mr, Hadley, " a scientific 

 part is a better starting-point than an unscientific 

 whole," — a conclusion which he reaches after dis- 

 cussing the undulatory theory of light, and a con- 

 clusion which shows how dangerous it is to 

 depend on analogy rather than on analysis. There 

 is no such thing as a scientific treatment of one 

 function of a developing organism which does not 

 recognize the essential and permanent relations of 

 that function to other forms of activity by the same 

 organism. Nor are aU economic truths ' authori- 

 tative and rigid,' Most of them are dependent 

 and relative. There is no meaning in the science 

 of history otherwise. Henry C. Adams, 



CHINESE REVENUES AND SYSTEMS OF 

 TAXATION. 



The pecuniary relations which China is now 

 more rapidly developing with foreign nations, 

 together with the greater demand for foreign 

 capital, will make of interest the following ac- 

 count of her revenues and sjstems of taxation, 

 for which the writer is indebted to an extended 

 article in the late numbers of the Austrian Monat- 

 schrift fur den orient. 



At the outset many difficulties are encountered 

 in the endeavor to obtain a just conception of 

 Chinese revenues and resources, not from any 

 dislike on the part of the government to hinder 

 the acquirement by foreign nations of such knowl- 

 edge, but because the details of the antiquated 

 and involved systems are not understood by the 

 authorities themselves, notwithstanding their ear- 

 nest desire to introduce a thorough reform. The 

 imposition and control of taxes rest wholly and 

 absolutely in the hands of the central govern- 

 ment, under the administration of the financial 

 minister at Pekin, What the revenues from any 

 given province may be, the central officials, how- 

 ever, can give no definite information ; a certain 

 amount is demanded and usually obtained, but 

 the details are left in the hands of the subordinate 

 officers. The methods require an army of officials, 

 who often make themselves enormously rich at 

 the expense of the tax-payers. They are un- 

 usually crude in many respects, the outgrowth of 

 old customs and habits, which, unfortunately, do 

 not encourage much hope of improvement so long 



as the ultimate authority rests, as it does now, ab- 

 solutely in the fiat of the chief ruling power. 



The chief disadvantage under which the taxa- 

 tion system labors consists in the fact that the 

 raising of taxes is farmed out. The contractors 

 bind themselves to furnish a certain quota or sum, 

 but at the same time enjoy the monstrous freedom 

 of levying what they can from the people, and 

 placing the excess in their own pockets. This 

 may not have been the original intent, but it has 

 become so virtually. It is not in human nature 

 to expect, that when, in any given year, a deficit 

 has been made up from the contractor's own 

 resources, the following year he will carefully 

 account for every cash ' that he may have re- 

 ceived in excess. It thus results that there is a 

 constant dispute between the central and provin- 

 cial authorities. The former, for instance, may 

 demand a sum of 50,000 taels, for the emperor's 

 household expenses, from the salt director of some 

 province, who calls heaven and earth to bear 

 witness that he cannot furnish another cash with- 

 out bankrupting himself ; nevertheless he complies 

 with the required demand, and grows old and fat 

 in the bargain. 



Such singular, one may say pitiful, systems for 

 a nation in many respects so intelligent as the 

 Chinese, furnish many erroneous opinions of the 

 nation's poverty, although there can be no doubt 

 that the government has been in a continual state 

 of impecuniosity since the beginning of the pres- 

 ent century, existing from hand to mouth, and 

 not becoming involved in debt for the simple reason 

 that it cannot. Had the government not found 

 in recent years a new resource in import duties, 

 to which indeed it was compelled to take recourse, 

 it would have been reduced to very great straits. 



Two notable events in the last few decades have 

 contributed to bring about a partial revolution in 

 the financial systems, viz., the Taiping rebellion, 

 and the opening up of the country to foreign 

 nations. The first caused the almost entire aboli- 

 tion of the old systems of land-tax over a large 

 part of the empire ; the latter opened up the new 

 resource of import duties, — a source of income 

 which, were it properly managed and husbanded, 

 would soon exceed all the others together. Yet 

 another development since the Taiping rebellion 

 is the so-called arbitrary likin, or toll-tax, which 

 has become a very important source of revenue. 

 All these changes render the older accounts of 

 Chinese revenues and taxation unreliable and in- 

 correct for the real condition of afl'ans at present. 



The state revenues consist in, 1°, the land-tax ; 

 2°, inland and import duties ; 3°, the salt-tax or 

 monopoly ; 4°, various smaller taxes and licenses 



1 1600 cash = 1 tael = about $1 ,43. 



