Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 27 - CHI-ELD.pdf/50

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CHINA

[statistics

of the domain being put in mortmain for this pur1888 a series of short papers was printed, contributed by mis- some portion When scattered, the collateral branches of such a family sionaries and others living in the interior of the country, describing pose. contrive to keep in touch, the common bond being the ancestral the social condition of the peasantry. From these it appears that hall and the right to join in the family ancestor - worship. the irreducible minimum is, in the more fertile parts as low as a Numerous instances can be found where families no better on than sixth of an acre per head. In other words, a family of six persons the commonalty can trace their descent back through twenty can make a living out of a farm of one acre. This would make a generations. possible population of 3840 to the square mile As a matter of Finance.—In fiscal matters, as for many other purposes, the fact the subdivision has in numberless cases been earned even Chinese empire is an agglomeration of a number of quasi-mdebelow that limit. Small patches of one- tenth, or even one- pendent units. Each province has a complete administrative staff, twentieth, are to be found as the estate of an individual landowner, collects its own revenue, pays its own civil service, pays its own and the vast majority of holdings run between one and thiee acres. militia and naval forces, and out of the surplus contributes With three acres a family is deemed very comfortable, and the towards the expenses of the imperial Government a sum which possession of ten acres or more means luxury. Three acres is about varies with the imperiousness of the needs of the latter and with, the largest quantity which one family can manage without employ- its own comparative wealth or poverty. The imperial Government ing' hired labour. In the northern provinces, where ivlieat, maize, does not collect directly any part of the revenues, unless we except &c” which do not require irrigation, are grown, five acres can be the imperial maritime customs, though these, too, pass through worked by one household. If the family possesses more land than the books of the provincial authorities. We may also except a lew that the balance is almost invariably let, and always in similar of the old native customs stations which are deemed perquisites ot small holdings. Nowhere is the system of farming by capitalists the imperial court, as, for instance, the native custom-house at with hired labour to be found. The following is an instance given Canton Hwei Kwan on the Grand Canal, and various stations m by one of the writers in the above-named journal, and may be taken the neighbourhood of Peking. The superintendent of these stations as tvpical of the bulk of the rural population. ., „„ a nominee of the court, always a Manchu, who makes his returns “ Pong Hia lives in a village of 300 persons, m which about 30 isdirect to the throne and not to the governors. But otherwise the are landowners. Pong Hia owns more than any other man m court and the central Government in Peking are dependent upon his class, having 2 acres (12 mow). His family consists of 10 per- the sums they can levy on the provinces. It has hitherto been sons. He is 46 years old, his wife is 41, his son ^is 22, his son s extremely difficult to obtain anything like trustworthy figures for wife is 22, his four daughters are from 10 to H, and his two the whole revenue of China, for the reason that im statistics are grandchildren are 3 and 8 years old He and his son till the published by the central Government at Peking. _ The only awailland, hiring help in harvest - time. The womenfoik weave and able data are, first, the returns published by the imperial Maritime make clothing for the family, rear pigs and fowls, and do all the Customs for the duties levied on foreign trade ; and, secondly, the housework. The house in which these ten persons live is worth memorials sent to Peking by the provincial authorities on revenue £12 including the site ; the furniture is worth£4 :10s., the clothing matters, certain of which are published from time to time m th worth about £4. The family lives comfortably upon the produce Peking Gazette. These are usually fragmentary, being merely of the land, and is reckoned affluent.” ,,, . reports which the governor has himself received from his subordiTo this it may be added that land such as the foregoing will nates, detailing, as the case may be, the yield of the land tax or the vield two, or sometimes three, crops in the year. The spring crop likin for his particular district, with a dissertation on the causes is wheat, sown in November and reaped m April; the summer or which have made it more or less than for the previous period. Oi principal crop is rice, planted in May and reaped m August or the return may be one detailing the expenditure of such and such September ; and an autumn crop of cabbages, beans, or other green a department, or reporting the transmission of a sum m reply to a stuff can usually be got in, sometimes overiapping with the wheat requisition of the Board of Revenue, with a statement of the source In the southern provinces two rice crops can be got m succession from which it has been met. It is only by collating these returns during the summer, besides the winter crop. . loea r over a long period that anything like a complete statement can be It will be gathered from the foregoing that there is no class of made up. And even then it is quite certain that these returns do wealthy territorial magnates, corresponding to the aristocracy of not represent anything like the total of taxation paid by tie S and other European countries. The only class which at al people, but, as far as they go, they may be taken to represent the resembles them is the class of retired officials. As the bureaucracy volume of taxation on which the Peking Government can draw monopolize all the power in the country, they generally contrive to monopolize a good deal of the wealth. This is not infrequently 16 The following figures1 give as nearly as can be done the actual invested in land, and consequently there are to be found m most revenue of the Chinese empire as returned by the responsible provinces several such families with a country seat and the usual officers of Government:— insignia of local rank and influence. On the decease of the heads Taels 25,000,000 Land tax in silver. or founders such families would, in the natural course of things be 6,500,000 „ ,, (in grain) value broken up and the land divided, but it is considered more dignified 13,500,000 Salt tax for the sons to refrain from dividing, and to live together shaniig 13,000,000 Likin. . • • the rents and profits in common. This is sometimes continued for 22,500,000 Foreign maritime customs several generations, until the country seat becomes an agglomeia2,000,000 Native customs tion of households and the family a sort of clan. A family of this 2,200,000 Duty on native opium. kind with literary traditions, and with the means to educate the 5,500,000 Miscellaneous young men, is constantly sending its scions into the public service, who in turn bring their earnings to swell the common funds while Taels 90,200,000 Total the rank and dignity which they may earn add to the importance Equal to £13,530,000. and standing of the group as a whole. The members of th^s mass are usually termed the literati, or gentry. Though the constitu Sources of Revenue.-!. Land Toa:.-In China, as m most tion does not recognize them as having any share m the local government, yet they can exercise an enormous influence m public Oriental countries, the land has from time immemorial been the affairs The 1peasantry who farm their lands are, of course, under mainstay7 of the revenue. In the ear y years of the present their control. The official rank which most of the members have dynasty there was levied along with the la,nd tax a poll tax on acquired by promotion or purchase enables them to resist, and adult males, but in 1712 the two were amalgamated, and the whole perhaps browbeat, the local officials, while they furtimr terrorize burden was thrown upon land, families not possessing land being the latter by threatening to denounce them to the Emperor thereafter exempted from taxation. At the same time it was which they can often manage to do through some one or other o decreed that the amount of the land tax as then fixed should be their many relations or marriage connexions who may happen to permanent and settled for all time coming. As a matter of fact have tiie L of the court. Being usually intensely bigoted and t would appear from the records that this promise has been kept conservative, they present a serious barrier to progress, especially as far as the central Government has been concerned. In all its if there is a foreign element in it, such as the introduction of rail- many financial difficulties it does not seem ever to have tried to ways or making of roads, or renting of inland residences by foreign increase the revenue by raising the land tax The amount of tax deed, and, once merchants or missionaries. Not infrequently have projects for the leviable on each plot is entered on the title 111081 ^ improvement of trade, assented to by the local officials, been entered, it cannot be changed. The tax on f thus stated to be so much in silver and so much m rice, vheat, or sq b.y t..e or"ttr£h£f 3 *°s whatever the principal crop may be Except in two provinces ?end“n cour of tio.e, to decline however, the grain tax is now commuted and paid m silver t he throuffii the levelling operation of the law of succession. As tie exceptions are the provinces of Kiangsu and Chekiang, which still S™who%^ 1 Throughout this article the tael spoken of is the Haikwan tael, ff Cfte peasantry *> till their the present value of which is about 3s. It fluctuates with the value of silver.