THE  CHINESE  EMPIRE

90
per  cent.,  and  the  grain  tribute  increased  from  a  legal  maximum ­
  of  Tls.2734  to  Tls.82-02,  an  addition  of  200  per  cent.
The  extreme  accuracy  of  calculation  also  is  to  be  noted
to  seven  places  of  decimals  of  a  unit  of  currency  with  a
present  value  of  three  shillings.  The  two  accounts  give  an
average  addition  to  the  land  tax  of  128  per  cent.,  and  to  the
grain  tribute  of  210  per  cent.
Mr.  Jamieson  goes  on  to  show  that  these  six  districts
in  which  land  was  bought  are  fairly  representative  of  the
soil  of  the  whole  of  Honan  ;  and  after  noting  that  the
average  taxation  (land  tax  and  grain  tribute  together)  was
Tls.01882  per  mow,  he  proceeds  to  apply  this  average  to
the  province.
The  area  of  Honan  province  is  about  60,000  square  miles-Assuming
  that  two-thirds  of  this  is  under  cultivation,  the
taxable  area  would  be  over  25,000,000  acres,  or  at  6  mo#
to  the  acre,  say  150,000,000  mow  of  ground.  In  the  Hwei
Tien,  the  standard,  though  a  somewhat  antiquated  statistical
record  of  the  Empire,  the  area  actually  registered  as  culti'
vated  is  given  as  63,986,185  mow.  This  was  on  the  authority
of  the  returns  of  the  17th  year  of  Chia  Ching  (1812).  Tl^
amount  is  likely  to  have  increased  since,  and  may  now  he
approximately  150,000,000  mow.  But  take  it  on  the  Ch#
Ching  returns,  and  supposing  the  taxation  levied  on  the
lands  held  by  the  syndicate  is  general,  the  yield  of  the  land
tax  for  the  whole  province  should  be  Tls.12,042,200.  Or
if  we  suppose,  as  seems  more  probable,  that  approximately
150,000,000  mow  pay  taxes,  the  sum  levied  from  the  people
would  be  well  over  Tls.28,000,000,  a  sum  which  is  not  very
far  short  of  what  is  now  returned  for  the  whole  Empire
China.
Compared  with  the  insignificant  sum  of  less  than
Tls.3,000,000  now  returned  by  the  province  of  Honan,
these  figures  may  well  seem  incredible,  but  I  simply  state
facts  as  I  find  them.
It  will  be  well  to  proceed  in  another  way  in  which  ^ e
shall  be  on  safer  ground.  It  must  be  assumed  that  the
railway  corporation,  a  financially  strong  body,  extraterri'