ABSTRACT OF PEKING GAZETTES, June 20th.—(Court Circular.) 'The Goy-cerner of Shun-tien reports a fall of rain' in the Capital of two inches and upwards of saturation.
(2) Prayers for rain will be held in the State Temples on the 25th instant, in which His Majesty will personally take part.
Tan Chun-pei is ap. pointed Financial Commissioner of Kiang-ssu, and Sun Ch'iao-tse $RHBP Judge of Hunan.
(3) The whole of this day's Gazette is occupied with a memorial from Ngén Ch'éng and T'ung Hua, the Imperial Commissioners in Szechuen, reporting the result of their investigations into the conditions of the salt trade in that province and severely criticising the report on the same subject that had been presented by the Governor-General Ting Pao-cheng. They first sum-manse this memorial and its appendices, in which the following statements are made A loan of Tls. 580,000 was raised as a capital on which to commence operations, and the tax reovipts for the year 1878° are stated to amount to Ts. 950,000 or thereabouts, which sum has been realised Without a fraction of extra taxation, so that the system is one that the mercantile classes gladly pursue, while the price paid, by" consumers is redueed from a hundred and several scores of cash to seventy or eighty cask. The Governor-General undertakes to send Tis, 180,000 to the Board of Revenue annually and to supplement it by a contribution of Tls. 6,000 towards defraying expenses incurred by the Board on public account. The Governor-General further undertakes to set aside Tls. 65,000 from the same fund to take the place of the amount. hitherto realised by sale of office. He has now ordered ten boats to be built, and has enlisted a number of sailors to' form a preventive service, the expenses for which, as well as for the staff of officials employed, he proposes to defray out of the balance in favour of the scale." The memorialists based their enquiries on the statements summarised above, and availed themselves of the replies of the Taotai T'ang Ch'iung, the head of the Department, both to present queries and to others' instituted in the carly part of the year. They were also furnished with the result of extensive enquiries set on foot, at their orders by the provincial executive, their object being to base their opinion upon actual fact. They find, in the first place, that the amount of capital which the Governor-General declares he has borrowed does not agree with the amount entered in the books of the Salt Office, while the receipts shown by him are inclusive of the whole of the taxation, regular as well as lekin, throughout the province and are not in accordance with the returns furnished by Tang Ch'iung. An item headed miscellancous receipts, which re-appears as office expenditure, is also not accounted for in the memorial. After pointing out a number of other minor discrepancies between the Governor-General's statement and the figures as shown in the books, the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.