Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/288

 a country gentleman who has influence at Seoul, the ajuns may not dare to take even the legal rate of tax. If he has slightly less influence, he may pay the legal tax on good years but less in years of scarcity. If he has no influence, he may pay the legal tax but nothing extra, in case of overplus. It is the common farmer who has practically no rights in the case and must always pay in full, and whatever proportion of the overplus the ajuns may require; or if there be no overplus, he may still have to give up part of the nine-tenths remaining after his legal tax is paid. No fields within the walls of Seoul are subject to taxation. The annual amount received from the land tax by the government is in the neighbourhood of eight million Korean dollars ; but exchange varies so much that this may mean anywhere from two million to three million in American currency. The lack of an adequate currency in the country districts makes it difficult for the farmers to pay their taxes in money, and so they often turn over their rice to the ajuns, who act as agents for its sale. These ajuns are not there for their health merely, and this form of trade is one of their handsomest perquisites.

With the exception of Seoul and its western and southern suburbs, every house in Korea is subject to a tax of fifteen hundred Seoul cash, or sixty cents, irrespective of the size or quality of the structure. The annual amount collected from this source is about half a million dollars. At sixty cents a house, this would mean something less than a million houses; and reckoning five people to the house, we should have only five millions as the population. Of course this is an absurdly low estimate, and the conclusion is inevitable, either that all the houses are not taxed or that there is a serious leakage in transit. When a new house is built, the magistrate gives a deed for it, and from that time it is supposed to be on the tax list. When a house burns or is swept away by a flood, the tax is always remitted.

All salt is made by evaporating sea-water ; and the " works " are so easily accessible and salt is such an indispensable commodity that this government, like most oriental ones, finds it