Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/488

446 The imperial revenue of China is believed to be about 85,000,000 taels, or $118,750,000, per annum, although the sum actually collected is probably much greater, the part that is unaccounted for being absorbed in the taking by the prominent officials. Under any circumstances, however, the great mass of the people of China are not heavily taxed; and their system of administration has few inquisitorial and annoying features; and to the absence of these the permanency of the Chinese Government for so long a period, and the tranquillity and contentment of the Chinese people may, in a great degree, be attributed. As the chief source of revenue to the state or Imperial Government, furthermore, is the direct and indirect land tax, the existing system of China may be regarded as a living, practical example of the single-tax system.

—Another example of an ancient system of taxation, which until a recent period has been subjected to very little change, is to be found in the case of Japan. In this country, as in China, the system of taxation is now, as it always has been, essentially a land tax, but greatly modified in recent years to conform to modern conditions. During the feudal period in Japan, taxes were for the most part paid in kind by the cultivators of the soil, and were in fact a form of rent due to the lord of the soil. Under the oldest régime, when the emperor was the real as well as the nominal head of the government, the land was divided into nine squares, the central one of which was cultivated by the holders of the other eight, for the use of the emperor, who thus received one ninth part of the total product of the soil. During the fifteenth century, when the military chieftains—the Daimios or Shoguns—had gradually usurped the real power of the emperor, a much larger proportion of the produce of the land was exacted; seldom less than four tenths of the total crop, and sometimes as much as two thirds. The staple food of the country being rice, the taxes were almost invariably collected in that commodity. The amount paid, however, was not fixed by any national measure, but varied from province to province, depending on local customs, the humor of the Daimio, or other circumstances. Moreover, as the established policy of the ancient feudal government was to preserve and fix the status of all classes and conditions of men, it laid down a multitude of vexatious and arbitrary rules regulating every kind of production, which in turn prevented everything in the way of independent action and progress on the part of the producers. Thus, the Japanese farmer without government permission could neither increase nor decrease. the amount of his cultivated land; nor could he change from the cultivation of rice requiring a wet or marshy soil to some other agricultural product requiring a drier soil. In short.