The provincial authorities have issued a proclamation detailing the amount of the indemnity, and forecasting means for raising the assessment, upon the Two Kuangs. Various rumours are abroad as to the nature of the new taxes. Swatow is an excellent source of revenue; a milky mother, albeit sometimes a refractory one, The Chinghai Hsien, under whose jurisdiction.it falls, paid' it a visit the other day, and invited the leading merchants to meet him at the Yamen to discuss matters. Only six of their number appeared, and nothing was done. Last Saturday he tried to take the bull by the horns by announcing that he would meet the members of the native Chamber of Commerce at their Guild-house. This time the meeting came off, but the magistrate again failed to score, as the spokesman of the merchants gave it as their opinion that Canton, being the principal port in the South, should be allowed to take the lead, and that Swatow would wait until the merchants there had moved, and then—would consider the question.
The form the tax is expected to take is a levy calculated upon the number of beams in each house, and collected from the occubier. This will bear heavily upon the class least able to pay, as it passes over the rich property owners, except in the matter of the houses they actually occupy. And these tenants are already paying a 5% tax for the few police who appear from time to time on the roads. This tax is levied upon the property owners, but they have quietly shifted its incidence by raising rents. If the house tax is persisted in the people say there will be trouble.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.