Hupeh who were asked to report upon the statements made in the foregoing memorial, enter at length into the history of the likin station at Shihtzitk'ou. In the year 1851 the river Hsiang burst its banks and flooded the surrounding country, The main bed of the river was silted up and vessels had to make a long and dangerous detour by the new channel in order to reach the lower part of the Yangtze, Seven years later the Prefect of the district organised a scheme for remedying this state of things by restoring the Chung embankment and proposed to raise the necessary funds by imposing a tax upon all boats passing through his ju tion. The measure came to nothing at the time, but it was revived a year Inter by the Prefect's successor, who published a tariff of the amount to be collected and applied the proceeds to the repair of the embankment, In 1862 the likin revenue of the station was diverted to military requirements, and to meet the yearly expenditure on the Chung embankment an additional tax was imposed upon the landed property in the district, In 1883 this latter tax was abolished and the likin receipts were again appropriated for the repair of the embankment. The memorialists take exception to several of the statements made by the Censor. It is searcely fair to assert that a tax whi superseded an assessment upon land contributes in no way to the benefit of the State, nor is it true that the proceeds are small, the fact being that the annual collection is considerably over 10,000 strings of cash. When the scheme was first started all vessels passing the station were divided into three classes—large, middle-sized, and small. The first paid from 100 cash upwards, the second from one to two thousand cash, and the third 3,400 as limit. The Ceneor''s assertion that at first vessels never paid more than 100 cash is utterly untrue. The increase in the levy is explained in this way: during the rebellion when the Yangtze was practically stopped to navigation very few native voss quanted the river and they were mostly of small type. Now the size and number of the boats have greatly increased and there has been a corresponding increase in the amount of the levy. As a matter of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.