A memorial from the Governor-General of Szechuan protesting against the proposed discontinuance of the system of granting additional graduateships at the triennial examinations, in return for contributions by the people of that province towards the necessities of the public service.
At the instance of the Censor Hsii, Chinting instructions were recently issued by the Board of Ceremonies, with the sanction of His Majesty, that no applications for the grant of extin degrees would under any circumstances be entertained in future, These orders having been duly communicated by memorialist to his subordinates, the Lieutenant-Governor has now submitted a petition to the following effect on behalf of 4 number of the provincial gentry and literati. The system in question dates back to the time of the Taiping rebellion, when the Emperor first sanctioned the levy of an annual addition to the land tax under the head of ching-f'ieh or auxiliary allowance.
The exigencies of the times soon led to a further annual assessment, under the head chuan shu, the two together producing a tnillion or more taels per aunum according to the harvests. In return for these nominally voluntary contributions one additionalgraduateship, over and above the fixed number, was granted for every Tls. 300,000 thus raised for public purposes, the people {being induced by means of this concession to submit cheerfully to an amount of taxation far in excess of that properly imposed by statute. When peace was restored and the people from to time applied to be relieved of this extra taxation, it was represented to them that more than half the Tls. 2,000,000
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.