Waar Lekin taxes and excessive exnotions are doing for China, we have again recent memorials in the Peking Gazette to prove. The worst of the matter is that, notwithstanding the clear nature of many of those memorials, and the satisfactory proofs they adduce of the real state of affairs, the Central Government seems unable, or unwilling, to stir; and the Provincial Administrations financial irregularities; and every absurd suggestion which could enter into the brain of a Chinese mandarin,—from the memorial of Wuchén, Superintending Censor of the Chinkeang district, which appeared in the Gazette of Oct. 5th, 1871—to that of Kwang-an, Cabinet Minister, in that of the 8th May Jast,—seems to have met with equal attention, or rather been treated with evenhanded disregard. One class of these memorials has been marked by a vehemency of personal abuse against the Viceroy, Wu-tang; while another has been distinguished by an equally vehement support of his administration. As Foreigners residing at a distance from Szechuen, we find a natural difficulty in judging of the rights and wrongs of such a case. "But we do know, independent of the strong proofs afforded by these reiterated complaints in the official paper of the Chinese Government, that Szechuen has been notoriously misgoverned; and that which ought to be one of the richest, if nob the richest, of the provinces, is in a state not far removed from entire disaffection. For some time, it may be remembered, the remains of the Taiping Rebellion kept flickering in Szechuen. The province has, of recent years, been also affected by the Minotsze difficulties in Kweichow, and the Panthay rebellion in Yunnan—both in immediate contiguity. It was thought necessary to quarter a number of troops in the province; and when the difficulties in the other districts were ended, the burdens wore still farther increased by many of the troops employed being saddled on the Szechuen establishment. It is needless to say that no provision was made for the expenses of the increased establishment. Each officer, of course, found himself called on to pay up more than his customary donation to Government, and the ingenuity of mandarins and of mandarins' agents was much exercised accordingly, in discovering the readiest way of wringing the most coin out of the unfortunate inhabitants.
Now Szechuen, as we have said, is a rich province,—that is to say its produc. tions are of a very valuable nature; and, ordinarily, its people are tolerably well off, as comfort goes in China. But soldiers cannot live on silk, and white-wax, and ¢'ung oil, which are some the commodities produced in most abundance in the province. Silk, and white-wax, and tung oil might, of course, be exchanged for money. The rest of China and the world generally would take them if they were allowed and so the soldiers could be fed with grain bought from the profit realised. A well-regulated scheme for the raising of taxation is Szechuen would take this into account; but Peking and H.E. Wu-tang, and all whose business it is to produce well-regulated schemes, ard
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.