is therefore untrue that the Japanese are not better off to-day than they were under the old regime. Since the introduction of the present financial conditions and the abolition of the feudal system, prices have increased enormously. From 1887 to 1897, according to the Monthly Returns published by the Bank of Japan, on the returns of about forty principal products of the Empire, we find that they have increased in value by no less than 73 per cent. Salaries have augmented even to a greater extent, and the population has risen 4,000,000, so that an addition of 45 per cent. upon the taxes leaves the taxpayer less heavily burdened than before. The most important of all these taxes may strike us as distinctly heavy, but we must not forget that in former times it was the only form of taxation. In those good old days nine-tenths of the population lived in the country, which was divided up among the daimios, the peasantry being their tenants; but at the abolition of the feudal system the peasants, under the new law, became proprietors, without having to pay a fraction either to their former masters or to the Government. In 1896 the agricultural produce of Japan was valued at £62,600,000, exclusive of the produce of the fens, which, however, is very important. The land taxes, therefore, at £3,800,000 are only 5·6 per cent., and the local land tax 2·8 per cent. of this total. All this is not excessive. Finally, the land tax includes £352,500 derived from the tax on urban building land, which pays £1 12s. per acre, only four times as much as the rice-fields, and should easily return from £200,000 to £300,000 more. As regards the total of the land tax, it was decreased by one-sixth in 1877; an equivalent increase would bring in a return of about £600,000 more, and this could be effected without much inconvenience, owing to the general increase in the value of property. The tax on _saké_, the principal drink of the country, was raised in 1897 about one-half. It would bear augmentation, as at present it pays 5d. per gallon on a drink which is worth 1s. 3d. a gallon. In general, the Japanese financiers prefer to raise existing taxes rather than establish new ones. If we study the question from another point of view, and examine how best to increase Japanese taxes, let us consider the Budget as it will be five years hence, after the necessary taxes already mentioned have been added to it. Of the £17,300,000 of the Revenue, £3,400,000 will be derived from Crown lands, railways, and posts, £850,000 from Formosa, and £13,000,000 from monopolies and taxes paid by Japan proper. The population, increasing as it does at the rate of 350,000 to 400,000 souls a year, will have reached 45,500,000, contributing to the State at the rate of £13,000,000, or about 5s. 9d. per head, which does not seem to us excessive when compared with what is paid by people of other countries. A Frenchman, for instance, pays £3, an Italian £1 12s., a Russian 12s. 9d., an Egyptian 16s.