July 1st.—(1) A Decree, conferring three memorial boards with inscriptions in the Imperial hand, upon the temples of the Queen vf Heaven, the God of the Winds, and the God of Dragons, at Kin Shan Tsui in Kiangsu, as a mark of gratitude for the divine assistance rendered in appeasing tempestuous weather during the constraction of an embankment on the seacoast, as reported by the Governor, Chang Shu Sheng.
The Governor-General of the Two Kiang and the Governor of Kiangsu jointly memorialize, soliciting a reduction in the tax-valuation of lands in the districts con stituting the Prefecture of Kiang-ning Fu (Nanking.) All records relating to the taxation of the seven districts in question perished during the Rebellion, and since 1868 a provisional system of Iand-revenue collection has been in force. The Board of Revenue having been urgent of Into for a return to the regular system of asseasment, representation is now made of the obstacles in the way of such a course, It is stated that the extent of cultivated (taxable) Iand in the seven districts was, according to the regulation heretofore estabished, 639,228,000 mow, assessed at Dads 293,37 in' motley, and' piculs 160,387 in kind (tice or beans.) The area of land at present actually restored to cultivation, in a greater or less degree, is 292,234,100 mow, and the rates of taxation to which this land should be subjected can only be ascertained in an indirect manner, by roference to the official gazetteers of former periods, etc. One great difficulty is occasioned by the fact that Innd held on the principle of military tenure Ff, fA] is to avery large extent intermingled with that of the ordinary freeholders, and it is no longer possible to distinguish the boundaries of one from the other. These military tenures (tu tien) are hereditary holdings, the revenue from which is destined to go toward the support of the persons employed in the grain-transport, and it is contrary to law to mortgage or sell such properties. Notwithstanding this, underhand transfers are made, under precautions against pubplicity suggested _by a knowledge of the illegal nature of the transaction, and all the efforts made for the last century to regulate the question have failed to achieve the desired end. The consequent confu-jon has become worse confounded in consequence of the rebellion. The tenor of the proposition now Inid before the Throne is that a reduction of 25 per cent. shall be allowed on the valuation in each of the three classes into which the taxable land
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.