horde of hungry officials.1 The establishment of the Imperial Maritime Customs under foreign supervision has grown out of the exigencies of the situation, the Chinese administration failing

utterly to discharge the duty with tolerable honesty. The Maritime Customs

Service and its excellent record.

It originated in a local provision for the administration of foreign customs at Shanghai by agreement between the Tao-tai of Shanghai and the British, American, and French Consuls, in 1854, which stipulated that the service at the port of Shanghai should be put in charge of a foreigner. The first inspector appointed was Mr. (afterwards Sir) Thomas Wade. This new system was subsequently extended so as to include in its supervision all treaty ports. It has grown in favor with the Chinese authorities, who recognize the integrity of their foreign servants, and highly appreciate the security and perceptible increment of their revenue. The present incumbent in the

or remanded to the same judge to be retried. In case the appellant can make a still larger present he stands some chance, not otherwise. Military officers are no better men, and they have still more chances to practise oppression and dishonesty. The soldiers' pay and rations pass through their hands, and they make a good percentage off these, as they draw pay for full companies when they are far from full-possibly less than half full. Officers deceive their superiors and their men, and their men desert them in the day of battle-yes, they smell the battle afar off and desert betimes.”—Mrs. C. W. Mateer (P. B. F. M. N.), Tungchow, China.

1 Mr. Allen, the British Consul at Foochow, in his last report on the trade of that port, says that an obstacle to the development of commerce in China, less easily remedied than bad roads, is a faulty, not to say an utterly rotten and corrupt, system of collecting revenue, wherein the vested interests involved are so enormous that nothing short of the reform of the whole fiscal arrangements of China can set it right. The system of farming the taxes, or at least making the official in charge of them remit a certain sum every year, while he puts the balance into his own pocket, insures the largest possible collection at the greatest possible cost and the least possible benefit to the Government. It is said that the cost of collecting likin is seventy per cent. of the total sum realized." In Foochow there are four separate establishments levying taxes on merchandise, each one competing with the others and looking on the revenue collected by them as a loss to itself. These are: (1) The Maritime Custom-House, levying duties on all goods imported or exported in foreign bottoms or in Chinese steamers. (2) The native Custom-House, levying duties on junk-borne cargo. (3) The Likin Office. The likin tax, originally a temporary war tax, is supposed to provide for the wants of the provincial administration and is under the control of the provincial treasurer. It is a universal excise duty from which nothing is exempt, and is so burdensome that it is occasionally resisted by riots. (4) The Lo Ti Shui, or Octroi Office. Intense jealousy of the foreign customs revenue exists in all other revenue departments of China. -Condensed from an article on The Effects of the Chinese Revenue System on Foreign Trade," in the London Mail, August 12, 1896.

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office of Inspector-General (or I. G., as he is familiarly called) is Sir Robert Hart, whose distinguished career and valuable services make a unique chapter in modern Chinese history. It seems more than probable that the model administration of the foreign customs may have a marked influence in helping China to reform her entire system of finance.

Korea seems to be a rival of China in official dishonesty. The Government is robbed in one direction, and the people in another. The official class, if one can judge from the testi

in Korea.

Official salary-grabbing mony which every one acquainted with the facts unites in giving, exists for the purpose of defrauding the Government and "squeezing" the people. All financial administration is simply chaotic. In a recent report rendered to the Japanese Government by Count Inouye, he describes at considerable length the governmental and financial status in Korea. His forcible language speaks for itself. In his "Problems of the Far East" Mr. Curzon speaks of the immense army of office-holders distributed through the eight provinces and three hundred and thirty-two prefectures of the kingdom, among whom only the superior ranks receive any salary, and this usually in arrears, while the rest must butter

1 Dr. Martin has a special chapter in "A Cycle of Cathay" on "Sir Robert Hart and the Customs Service" (part ii., chap. xiii.), in which he gives much interesting information based upon personal friendship with the Inspector and thorough knowledge of his services.

Mr. R. S. Gundry, in his recent volume, "China Present and Past," thus summarizes the personnel of the service: "The work is carried on, under the InspectorGeneral, by a staff of 30 commissioners, 12 deputy commissioners, and 132 assistants, besides clerks and others, who bring up the indoor staff to 206. The outdoor staff comprises 415 tide-surveyors, examiners, tide-waiters, etc. There are 6 armed revenue cruisers, commanded by Europeans, but manned by Chinese, besides a number of armed launches. The entire service employs about 753 foreigners and 3540 Chinese, or a grand total of 4293. The annual cost is about £400,000 a year, while the revenue collected in 1893 amounted to close on £4,000,000" (p. 197).

2 "There was no practical distinction between the Court and the Administration; no attempt to clearly differentiate the functions of the one from those of the other. There were no financial laws of any kind; no account-books. If the Court wanted money, it put its hands into the coffers of the official section outside the Household; if the officials wanted money, they had recourse to the coffers of the Court. Neither made any scrutiny into the objects of the other's expenditure. When the coffers of both were empty, the provincial Governors were required to find the requisite sum. It was always a welcome mandate to the Governors, for neither the method of collection nor the amount collected was ever closely examined. Each Governor adopted whatever system of requisition promised most prolific results, and the prison doors stood always open for reluctant subscribers. If prisoners died of torture, starvation, or disease before they untied their purse-strings, no inconvenient questions were

their own bread as best they can.1 In an article on "Korean Finance," published in The Korean Repository, April, 1896, the author states that the revenue which is paid by the people is double the amount which the Government actually receives. "More than one half goes astray after it leaves the hands of the people. Where does it go? It is evident that it goes to fill the pockets of these officials, whose business it is to squeeze the people and rob the Government."

Turkey and Persia.

In the Turkish Empire and Persia official corruption and a wellnigh universal practice of bribery are habitual features of governmental administration. In both these typical Oriental empires an elaborate theory of good government Bribery at flood-tide in exists, with hardly any perceptible application in practice. Principles and rules are on record as the impressive symbols of law and order to be appealed to in times of inconvenient exposure as the supposed programme of official procedure, but that they have any control over executive action is so palpably false that it would be a waste of time to assert it. In fact, the "itching palm" is not found among secular officials only, but it lurks under priestly robes also, and ecclesiastical officials are hardly less alert than State functionaries to the material advantages which the use of authority can be made to yield. The native press itself admits the existence of this serious fault in ecclesiastical circles.2 Mrs. Bishop, in her volasked. Neither need accounts be rendered of the sums collected; any excess over and above the contribution called for by the Court went into the pockets of the local Governors. To get a person of substance into prison was officialdom's best opportunity. Hence no line was drawn between criminal procedure and civil procedure, nor did any preliminary inquiry stand between a defendant and the gaol. So soon as a suit was duly lodged against a man the officials were competent to thrust him into prison at once.

"Against the terrible abuses practised under such a system there was no redress, for the idea that an administration's first duty is to secure the lives and properties of the people under its sway did not enter into the theory of government in Korea. Government, indeed, had no practical significance beyond the sale of offices. Every official had to buy his post, purchasing either from the central authority or from the local, the necessary funds being furnished by usurers, who exacted interest at the rate of twenty per cent. per month, and the official, having no assurance as to the time that might remain at his disposal before his post was resold to some one else, lost not a moment in recouping his original outlay."—Quoted from the Korean correspondence of the London Mail, August 21, 1895.

1 "Problems of the Far East," p. 173.

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2 Cf. an article by the Rev. S. G. Wilson, of Tabriz, on Church Reform-a Coming Armenian Watchword," in The Church at Home and Abroad, October, 1895, p. 309. In this article Mr. Wilson quotes extensively from native Armenian journals, in which the statement made above is confirmed. Mr. Wilson's recent book,

umes entitled "Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan," while giving full credit to the energy and personal zeal for reform manifest in the administration of the late Shah, refers in strong language to the fact that "justice seems to be here, much as in Turkey, a marketable commodity, which the working classes are too poor to buy." She speaks again of "the inherent rottenness of Persian administration, an abyss of official corruption and infamy without a bottom or a shore, a corruption of heredity and tradition, unchecked by public opinion or the teachings of even an elementary education in morals and the rudiments of justice. There are few men pure enough to judge their fellows or to lift clean hands to heaven, and power and place are valued for their opportunities for plunder."1 In Turkey the condition of the secular administration is so notorious that no one acquainted with the country or having had opportunity to observe the methods of civil and criminal procedure would venture to question the existence of bribery and corruption among the official classes. The most explicit and damaging statements upon this point are to be found in the official communications of diplomatic residents in reports to their respective governments. Wilson, British Consul-General in Anatolia, writes that "the most open and shameless bribery is practised, from highest to lowest." Mr. Everett, Vice-Consul at Erzerum, says: "The first consideration of the administrators of justice is the amount of money that can be extorted from an individual, and the second is his creed." The spirit which animates the courts of Asia Minor is well defined as "fanaticism tempered by corruption." 2

In fact, the bane of semi-civilized governments is the uncontrollable venality of official life. It was as bad in India as elsewhere a few generations back, and were it not for the vigorous oversight of English authority and the fact that British officials are chiefly in the places of responsibility, there would be nothing to guarantee purity of administration to-day. Our limits of space will not permit us to dwell longer upon this theme.

5. MASSACRE AND PILLAGE.-References have already been made, in several specifications under a previous group in this lecture, to the brutality and rapine which usually attend tribal warfare. In this con"Persian Life and Customs," contains many references to the misuse of official position in that country, especially among the minor officials (pp. 67, 179, 182, and introduction, p. 15).

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1 "Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan," vol. i., p. 103; vol. ii., p. 257.

2 Greene, "The Armenian Crisis in Turkey," pp. 74, 113.