cost. This they
usually do by declaring the taxes leviable not in silver, but in
copper "cash", which indeed is the only currency that circulates in
country places, and by fixing the rate of exchange to suit themselves.
Thus while the market rate is, say, 1500 cash to the tael, they
declare by general proclamation that for tax-paying purposes cash will
be received at the rate of 3500 or 4000 to the tael. Thus while the
nominal land tax in silver remains the same it is in effect doubled or
trebled, and, what is worse, no return is made or account required of
the extra sums thus levied. Each magistrate or collector is in effect
a farmer. The sum standing opposite the name of his district is the
sum which he is bound to return under penalty of dismissal, but all
sums which he can scrape together over and above are the perquisites
of office less his necessary expenses. Custom, no doubt, sets bounds
to his rapacity. If he went too far he would provoke a riot; but one
may safely say there never is any reduction, what change can be
effected being in the upward direction. According to the best
information obtainable a moderate estimate of the sums actually paid
by the cultivators would give two shillings per acre. This on an
estimate of the area under cultivation should give for the eighteen
provinces L19,000,000 as being actually levied, or more than four
times what is returned.

2. _The Salt Duty._--The trade in salt is a government monopoly. Only
licensed merchants are allowed to deal in it, and the import of
foreign salt is forbidden by the treaties. For the purpose of salt
administration China is divided into seven or eight main circuits,
each of which has its own sources of production. Each circuit has
carefully defined boundaries, and salt produced in one circuit is not
allowed to be consigned into or sold in another. There are great
differences in price between the several circuits, but the consumer is
not allowed to buy in the cheapest market. He can only buy from the
licensed merchants in his own circuit, who in turn are debarred from
procuring supplies except at the depot to which they belong.
Conveyance from one circuit to another is deemed smuggling, and
subjects the article to confiscation.

Duty is levied under two heads, the first being a duty proper, payable
on the issue of salt from the depot, and the second being likin levied
on trans