Some years ago, when China was beginning to feel some difficulty in meeting her enormous military expenditure in connexion with the organization and training of her new army, Sir Robert Hart submitted a scheme for reforming the system of collecting the land tax of the country, by means of which, he believed, "the revenue from this source would be considerably increased, if not doubled.
He proposed to divid> lands in all proviners into three grades, according to their qualities, and to impose uniform tax on each grade. At the time his scheme, though termed "the scheme for the equalization of the land tax," did not receive the favourable consideration from the "powers that be" that it deserved, owing to the existence of a decree of the founder of the Ching Dynasty, forever forbidding is successsers to increase the land tax. His plan was, therefore, shelved for the time being. Of course, his was not a plan likely to have incurred any real or lasting resentment on the part of the Government.
As every source from which money can be raised has been put to the testond no foreign loan will be obtainable asdang as the war in Europe continues, Sir Roberts po scheme has suddenty been remembered and deemed at once a scheme both workable and likely to succeed with a few modifications, since there is no more need to feel scruples about wounding Mancha susceptibilities. So the old scheme was ferreted out from the archives of the Ministry of Finance and conveyed to the Presidential Palace. where a Financial Conference was held at which it was decided to try the experiment forthwith in Kiangsu and Chekiang, th> two provinces still regarded by the Government as the richest and meckest of all. If the experiment there should prove successful, the scheme will then be extended to Chihli, Hunan, and other ern tral provinces, and lastly to Singkiang, Szechuan, the three Manchurian provinces, and other frontier territories,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.