We have received a joint memorial from Viceroy of Hunan and in-lin, Governor of Hu Governors of possible haste to investigate. the customs, salt, and likin departments within their jurisdictions and Hog out Ghat pexyntten ow bows itt held from the Goverament, and abo what economies should be observed in order to divert the money saved into the Imperial Exchequer." The joint memori lists declare that, after careful invest tion into these three departments, 1 Hupeh province, and an attempted re organisation of the lind taxes and tribute rice departments they find that nothing more can be expected from them, ax the have already been made to give up'all thei superfluous revenues. They also camp! that the Board of Revenue has of late years made so many extra calls upon th provincial revenues that now, even with the greatest economy, they find it most difficult to carry on the regular government work, nor have they any surpluses now to fall back upon whenever the exigencies of the time demand extra expenses. Finally, after careful deliber: tion the joint. memorialists find that all they can therefore do is that the Viceroy shall contribute Tls.2,000 and the Gover and his civil subordinates, com Ths, 7,700 Throne to accept As a contribution from Hupeh province, ete.
Now, owing to the difficulty of of ing sufficient money for Imperial expenses which the present crisis demands of us, we commanded our Viceroys Governors to probe the various departments under them to tintd out what had been pocketed by their subordi which rightly should have gone into the Imperial Exchequer in order to stop dix-honesty and. fi dishonest offic attending upon the masses. We had no desire that these Viceroy and) Governors should ser from the people for these sums to satis the Imperial Exchequer. We simply claimed our rights. IE there are actually no perquisites or surplus to divert into the proper exchequer the duty of the said Viceroys and Governors should be to say so in so many words and not seek to make up in a round about way. Yesterday Yii Ch'ang, Governor of Honan, on behalf of himself' and his subordinates offered to contribute annually Tls. 100,000 to the Imperial Exchequer, a sum' from their own pockets and not the result of perquisites, etc. But as this money would necessarily be taken from the masses who would thereby suffer, we must decline this money. To return however, to chang Chih-tung, he must remember that niunerous schemes he has during years' Viceroyship expended myriads of taels belonging to the Imperial Exchequer; does he then wish us to believe that, in all Hupeh, he cannot find a single instance of dishonest appropriation of the funds or illegal taxing of the people for the sole benefit of the officials? Yet has the cllrontery to offer a few thousand taels as contribution if we required such "contributions!" We hereby command that both Chang Chin-tung and Ya Yin sternly. reprided for their ¢ ud informed that we refuse their money. In future or Governor have to report to the communicate with other officials use the telegraph lines to do so, but they must be sparing of their words re hereby forbidden for the future to ul prosy dispatches, which ent by courier, and thus economise 3 amount in this respect. ud 3rd February.
No papers of interest.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.