The shih of rice is estimated at $3, but this does not include the cost of transportation to the capital.[162] At $200,000,000, the tax received by government from each person on an average is about sixty cents; Barrow estimates the capitation at about ninety cents. The account of the revenue in taels from each province given in the table of population on page [264], is extracted from the Red Book for 1840;[163] the account of the revenue in rice, as stated in the official documents for that year, is 4,114,000 shih, or about five hundred and fifty millions of pounds, calling each shih a pecul. The manner in which the various items of the revenue are divided is thus stated for Kwangtung, in the Red Book for 1842:
| Taels. | |
|---|---|
| Land tax in money | 1,264,304 |
| Pawnbrokers’ taxes | 5,990 |
| Taxes at the frontier and on transportation | 719,307 |
| Retained | 339,143 |
| Miscellaneous sources | 59,530 |
| Salt department (gabel) | 47,510 |
| Revenue from customs at Canton | 43,750 |
| Other stations in the province | 53,670 |
| 2,533,204 |
This is evidently only the sum sent to the capital from this province, ostensibly as the revenue, and which the provincial treasury must collect. The real receipts from this province or any other cannot well be ascertained by foreigners; it is, however, known, that in former years, the collector of customs at Canton was obliged to remit annually from eight hundred thousand to one million three hundred thousand taels, and the gross receipts of his office were not far from three millions of taels.[164] This was then the richest collectorate in the Empire; but since the foreign trade at the open ports has been placed under foreign supervision, the resources of the Empire have been better reported. A recent analysis of the sources of revenue in the Eighteen Provinces has been furnished by the customs service; it places them under different headings from the preceding list, though the total does not materially differ. Out of this whole amount the sum derived from the trade in foreign shipping goes most directly to the central exchequer.
| Taels. | |
|---|---|
| Land tax in money | 18,000,000 |
| Li-kin or internal excise on goods | 20,000,000 |
| Import and export duties collected by foreigners | 12,000,000 |
| Import and export duties on native commerce | 3,000,000 |
| Salt gabel | 5,000,000 |
| Sales of offices and degrees | 7,000,000 |
| Sundries | 1,400,000 |
| Amount paid in silver | 66,400,000 |
| Land tax paid in produce | 13,100,000 |
| 79,500,000 |
De Guignes has examined the subject of the revenue with his usual caution, and bases his calculations on a proclamation of Kienlung in 1777, in which it was stated that the total income in bullion at that period was tls. 27,967,000.
| Taels. | |
|---|---|
| Income in money as above | 27,967,000 |
| Equal revenue in kind from grain | 27,967,000 |
| Tax on the second crop in the southern provinces | 21,800,000 |
| Gabel, coal, transit duties, etc. | 6,479,400 |
| Customs at Canton | 800,000 |
| Revenue from silk, porcelain, varnish, and other manufactures | 7,000,000 |
| Adding house and shop taxes, licenses, tonnage duties, etc. | 4,000,000 |
| Total revenue | 89,713,400 |
The difference of about eighty millions of dollars between this amount and that given by Medhurst, will not surprise one who has looked into this perplexing matter. All these calculations are based on approximations, which, although easily made up, cannot be verified to our satisfaction; but all agree in placing the total amount of revenue below that of any European government in proportion to the population. In 1823, a paper was published by a graduate upon the fiscal condition of the country, in which he gave a careful analysis of the receipts and disbursements. P. P. Thoms translated it in detail, and summarized the former under three heads of taxes reckoned at tls. 33,327,056, rice sent to Peking 6,346,438, and supplies to army 7,227,360—in all tls. 46,900,854. Out of the first sum tls. 24,507,933 went to civilians and the army, leaving tls. 5,819,123 for the Peking government, and tls. 3,000,000 for the Yellow River repairs and Yuen-ming Palace. The resources of the Empire this writer foots up at tls. 74,461,633, or just one-half of what Medhurst gives. The extraordinary sources of revenue which are resorted to in time of war or bad harvests, are sale of office and honors, temporary increase of duties, and demands for contributions from wealthy merchants and landholders. The first is the most fruitful source, and may be regarded rather as a permanent than a temporary expediency employed to make up deficiencies. The mines of gold and silver, pearl fisheries in Manchuria and elsewhere, precious stones brought from Ílí and Khoten, and other localities, furnish several millions.
PRINCIPAL ITEMS OF EXPENDITURE.
The expenditures, almost every year, exceed the revenue, but how the deficit is supplied does not clearly appear; it has been sometimes drawn from the rich by force, at other times made good by paltering with the currency, as in 1852-55, and again by reducing rations and salaries. In 1832, the Emperor said the excess of disbursements was tls. 28,000,000;[165] and, in 1836, the defalcation was still greater, and offices and titles to the amount of tls. 10,000,000 were put up for sale to supply it. This deficiency has become more and more alarming since the drain of specie annually sent abroad in payment for opium has been increased by military exactions for suppressing the rebellion up to 1867. At that date the Empire began to recuperate. The principal items of the expenditure are thus stated by De Guignes: