Wririne in March last year on the " Gazette " for the last quarter of 1902, we were able to congratulate the Chinese Treasury on the revenue collected during the quarter showing an increase of nearly a million and a quarter taels over the receipts in 1901, which themselves were nearly two million taels over those of the year of trouble 1900. We have now to record a reaction, the receipts in last quarter of 1903 being nearly 300,000 below those in 1902. But it must be noted that Shanghai alone shows a loss of Tls. 600,000, and more than half of this -loss was made up by the other Chinese ports. Reference to the following comparative table will show that of the thirty ports, only seven, Newchwang, Tien-
~The following table chows the revenue for the three years under the usual heads, in Haikuan tael:
1903. 1902, "1901. Import ruty...2,555,632 2,829,094 2,339,794 Export duty...2,322,886 2,673,544 2,071,826 Coast trade.
duty... 458,638 443,276 434,565 Opium duty... 637,567 499,698. "667,015, Tonnage dues... 285,492 267,262 242,864 ost 480,675 896,190 272,196 iam n...1,209,527 1,068,920 923.976
8,177,804 6,952,236.
The loss this year, it will be the other heads of revenue \iowieg seen, was incurred in import amy, export duty, and tonnage 3
'a marked improvement, It may be noted that the opium duty includes Tls. 183,995 derived from native opiuth, against Ths, 98,764 in 1902 and Tls. 320,536 in 1901, We are now able to give a summary of the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.