Swatow, Mar. 2.
Republitan China has not _yet Tearnt the lesson which 1,000 years of constitutional development} taught the English, that to make democracy effective the people must! have eqntrol of the nation's purse Until, provincially and nationally, China establishes control of taxation and expenditure, not only are' the common people at the mercy every local official, but _the officials are at the merey of their own impecuniosity, and can only by unlegal exaction pay their just, expenses and recoup themselves. for the initial purchase of office. Only when these charges are met _and yet_more money collected are they to be called rapacious. For if the people, by not having control of the purse, are open to an infinity of, illegal exactions, it is equally true that the Chinese are among the, most lightly taxed peoples of the earth, if legal tization only be takow into account, The assessment in legal form of a title of what is illegally exacted from them by military adventurers and the multitude of officials would be bitterly resented and in normal timos lead merchant strikes and wide protests. For though the people are] accustomed to extortion, they have no training in the payment of any large legal dues, nor taxation for the public welfare, On the ultimate determination of a just system of taxation depends the welfare of the, people, the abolition of official corruption, and the establishment China's' international ere and' he will be the political saviour of] China who can educate the people and control the government to this end.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.