FINANCE
the rice. Having received the money, the district magistrate (chih-hien), who is the responsible tax-collector, either purchases the required quantity of rice in the market at the best rate obtainable—often clearing a large profit on the transaction—and forwards it to the general depot whence it is ultimately sent north by the transport department; or he makes an arrangement with that department to buy the rice in consideration of the receipt of a lump sum. Ultimately the transport department—which is an important branch of the Government, maintaining a large number of officials and employes—becomes responsible for the delivery of the grain in Peking. It is estimated that the total sum collected from the people on account of this grain tax of five million taels is eleven and a half million; that is to say, six and a half millions remain in the hands of local officials and the transport department, while five millions go to Peking. Of course these five millions are included in the twenty-five millions that represent the total collected as land tax.
After the land tax the salt gabelle is one of the most important sources of revenue. The sale of salt in the eighteen provinces and Manchuria is a government monopoly, and has been so ever since the seventh century before Christ, when Kwan Chung, premier of the state of Ts'i (now Shantung), who had already given proof of shrewdness by devising "a kind of lupanar where
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