Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/38

 one decade. Before inferring, however, from these figures that the burdens of the people have increased to a corresponding degree, it must be noted, in the first place, that the revenue includes an important item quite independent of taxation, namely, receipts from Government enterprises and properties (as railways, posts, telegraphs, telephones, factories, forests, etc.); an item which naturally grows with the country's prosperity. The income from this source ten years ago was 8,500,000 yen; to-day it is 46,500,000. In considering the revenue derived from taxes, profits of such a nature must be omitted, and if that correction be applied, the revenue for 1890-1891 becomes 96,250,000 yen and that for 1901-1902 is reduced to 154,500,000. Further, to correctly estimate the weight of the people's fiscal burden, it is necessary to exclude the taxes on sake and tobacco, as well as the customs dues, for the two former need not be paid by any person desiring to avoid them, and the customs are an indirect impost scarcely felt by buyers of imported goods. The sake tax produced only 15,000,000 yen ten years ago; to-day it produces 55,000,000, the tobacco tax produced nearly 2,000,000 in 1890-1891, and is now included in the receipts from Government industries; and the corresponding figures for customs dues are 4,000,000 and 15,250,000. Thus corrected, — the miscellaneous receipts also being omitted, — it results that the revenue raised by taxation at present is 78,250,000