Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition.djvu/817

 FINANCE - 461

Branches of Expenditure

Amount

Taelu 19,478,000

Remittances: Metropolitan administration, Mancbu garrisons and the Imperial

Household

Board of Admiralty (Peiyang Squadron) ' 5,000,000

Southern naval squadrons i 5,000,000

Forts, guns, and coast defence j 8,000,000

Defence of Manchuria ! 1,848,000

Kansuh and Central Asia. . ' 4,800^000

Aids to Yunnan and Kweichow 1,655,000

Interest and repayment of foreign loans j 2,500,000

Railway construction 500,000

Public works, river embankments, sea wall, &c 1,500,000

Customs administration, including maintenance of lighthouses,

beacons, and revenue cruisers i 2,478,000

Administration of IS provinces, including cost of troojts. . . 36,220!000

Total 88,979,000

The land tax varies in different provinces from lOd. or 1«. to Gs. 6d. or more per acre. The rate of incidence is theoretically fixed, but under other names additional taxes are imposed on land. Salt is a Government monopoly, all producers being required to sell to Government agents, who, at a price which covers the duty, re-sell to merchants provided with 'salt warrants.' Likin is a tax imposed on merchandise in course of transportation, payable at appointed barriers ; with it is now united a producers' tax.

The collection of the revenue on the Chinese foreign trade and the administration of the lights on the coast of China are under the management of the Imperial Customs Department, the head of which is a foreigner (British), under whom is a large staff of European, American, and Chinese subordinates the department being organised somewhat similarly to the English Civil Service. It has an agency in London.

The receipts amounted to 7,872,257 haikwan taels, or 2,361, 677Z. (ex. 6.?.), in 1864, and, gradually increasing, have risen to 22,523,605 haikwan taels (including 5,050,303 taels, opium likin), or 3,601,430Z. (ex. 35. 21^.), in 1894 ; to 21,385,389 haikwan taels (including 4,104,145 taels, opium likin), or 3,497,402/. (ex. 3s. 3^^), in 1895 ; to 22,579,366 haikwan taels (in- cluding 3,919,759 taels, opium likin), or 3,763,227Z. (ex. ds. Ad.), in 1896 ; to 22,742,104 haikwan taels (including 3,947,607 taels, opium likin), or 3,387,626Z. (ex. 2s. Hid.), in 1897.

The existing debt of China has arisen almost entirely out of the recent war with Japan. In 1887 there was contracted a German loan of 5,000,000 marks in gold at 5^ per cent. In 1894 a foreign silver loan of 1.635,000Z. was raised at 7 per cent., and in February, 1895, a gold loan of 3,000,000Z., both on the secuiity of the customs revenue, while other advances, on the same security, amounting to over 2,000,000Z. were obtained from local banks and foreign syndicates. Internal loans were also obtained amounting to nearly 5,000,000Z. The war indemnity to be paid to Japan amounted to 200,000,000 Kuping, or Imperial Treasury, taels, and the compensation for the retrc'cession for the Leao-tong peninsula to 30,000,000 taels. Conse- quently, in 1895, another foreign loan was raised amounting to 15,820,000Z. at 5 per cent, and in March, 1896, an Anglo-German loan of 16,000,000/. at 5 per cent, was contracted. To ]»ay otf the balance of the war indemnity due to Japan a further loan of 16,000,000/. was concluded on March 1, 1898, with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Danking Cori)oration and the Deutsch-