82  THE  CHINESE  EMPIRE
himself,  without  question,the  interest  on  his  official  balances,
so  did  the  English  Paymasters  of  the  Forces  up  to  the  time
of  Pitt,  and  probably  for  many  years  after  his  time  ;  certainly ­
  until  after  Fox  was  appointed  to  the  post.  Even
modern  America,  with  the  foundations  of  its  government
freed  from  all  feudal  substructure,  in  some  of  its  legitimate
and  legalised  practices,  furnishes  a  moderate  example  ot
what  in  China  is  immoderate.  Up  to  a  very  few  y earS
ago,  the  office  of  the  Sheriff  of  the  County  of  New  York
was  maintained  on  principles  inherited  from  the  England
of  the  eighteenth  century  ;  he  received  a  salary  ($5&gt; o0 °)
and  fees  (averaging  $60,000),  and  himself  paid  the  salaries
of  his  deputies,  and  provided  for  the  expenses  of  his  office  •
this  is  the  Chinese  system,  except  that,  in  China,  the  f eeS
are  taken  and  the  work  not  done.  The  American  consular
system,  up  to  the  year  of  Grace  1906,  furnished  another
illustration  :  the  income,  perfectly  legitimate  and  legal'
of  the  Consul  to  Mesopotamia,  let  us  say,  would  consist
of  his  salary,  $3,000,  and  fees  ranging  from  $1,000  t0
$10,000.  These  instances  are  adduced,  not  in  any  waY
to  belittle  the  (what  we,  with  our  twentieth-century  views»
call)  administrative  corruption  of  the  Chinese  Empire
but  to  bring  home  to  the  Western  mind  the  underlying
principle  upon  which  the  Chinese  system  is  based.
Another  distinction  between  the  fiscal  systems  of
East  and  the  West  is  in  the  “  common  purse.”  In  Engla*
all  national  official  revenue  is  covered  into  the  Exchequer«
in  America  into  the  Treasury.  In  China,  theory  and  practi ce
are  divergent  ;  in  theory,  everything  is  subject  to  the  E#'
peror,  land,  property  and  revenue  ;  in  practice,  the  reveo*
is  assigned  piecemeal  from  certain  sources  of  collect!**
to  certain  defined  heads  of  Imperial  expenditure,  afl
must  be  remitted  independently  for  the  purposes  assign**'
One  province,  for  example,  may  be  assessed  Tls.5O°’ 00 °
as  the  Likin  collection  for  the  year  ;  instead  of  remitió^
this  to  the  Imperial  Treasury,  or  holding  it  subject  to  th*
order  of  the  Treasury,  Tls.  100,000  will  be  remitted  dh eC
to  the  Shanghai  Taotai  for  the  service  of  the  foreig*