REVENUE  AND  EXPENDITURE  85
of  the  Imperial  Treasury  consist  rather  of  surpluses  handed
over  after  providing  for  all  costs  of  collection  and  all  expenses ­
  of  local  administration  ;  they  correspond  somewhat
to  the  matriculations  of  the  German  Empire  ;  they  correspond ­
  more  closely,  perhaps,  to  the  surplus  remitted  from
Cyprus  to  Constantinople,  after  providing  for  the  administrative ­
  expenses  of  the  island.  There  are  no  figures  available
to  show  the  enormous  sums  taken  from  the  taxpayer  and
devoted  to  the  maintenance  of  the  army  of  officials  engaged
in  collecting  the  revenue—sums  the  larger  for  being  left,
in  the  collecting,  to  the  unregulated  and  uncontrolled
discretion  of  the  collectors.
Revenue
The  heads  of  revenue  collection  may  be  divided  into
old  and  new.  The  old  comprise  :  1,  Land  Tax  ;  2,  Tribute  ;
3,  Customs  ;  4,  Salt  ;  and  5,  Miscellaneous  (taxes,  fees,
tenures  and  licenses)  ;  the  new  are  :  6,  Foreign  Customs  ;  and
7,  Likin  ;  with  some  new  license  fees  which  will  fall  under  5.
I.  Land  Tax
The  foundation  of  Asiatic  government  is  conquest,  not
the  consent  of  the  governed.  When  the  various  dynasties
who  have  ruled  China  came  into  possession  of  the  throne,
they  held  the  country  in  the  hollow  of  their  hand—Dieu
et  mon  droit  their  motto—and  the  land  and  the  fruit  thereof
became  their  property.  Even  an  Asiatic  government,
however,  does  not  carry  all  its  theories  into  full  practice,
and  the  usufruct  of  the  land  of  China  is  left  to  its  occupiers,
with  full  rights  of  transfer  of  possession  ;  but  the  rights  of
overlordship  are  recognised  by  the  payment  of  land  tax
proportioned  to  the  (original)  rental  value  of  the  land.
This  revenue  was  formerly  the  main  dependence  of  the
Government  in  providing  for  its  own  needs,  the  amount
remitted  to  Peking  constituting,  a  hundred  years  ago,
probably  two-thirds  of  the  cash  receipts  of  the  Imperial
Treasury  ;  but  a  hundred  years  ago  China  had  no  urgent