For centuries the administration of China has been as corrupt as it is to-day, but for all this it has never driven the people to rebellion. It is true that occasionally there are local agitations, whose chiefs go so far as to pounce upon offending representatives of authority and convey them to the capital of the district, or province, to demand their degradation, which is more often than not accorded—a fact which inspired an English paper at Shanghai to descant on the ‘democratic manner in which the Chinese participate in their government.’ Oppression tempered by revolt is the rule which prevails in the Celestial Empire, but there is no fear of a general revolution against so degenerate a system. This administrative machine, however, which appears to us to be so detestable, only impedes progress, but does not affect the population, which is accustomed to routine habits hundreds of years old, and has not the remotest idea that a reform is either necessary or practicable. When an enterprising man wishes to introduce even the most insignificant of modern trades, he invariably attracts the attention of the mandarins, to whom he is obliged to apply for permission to carry on his novelty, and will only obtain it after much bribery and a promise to pay such a huge percentage on his profits as to render the returns of his venture too insignificant to be worth his continuing it. But for the uncomplaining and unprogressive, who have nothing to do with administrative affairs, life in China flows easily and quietly enough. The taxes are very light, especially for the peasantry, who live by what they harvest in their fields, or for the workpeople, whose wants are very small They fall, however, heavily upon commercial transactions and the transport of merchandise, are a great impediment to commerce, and though they never affect them directly, for their poverty is far too great to permit of their buying anything, they contribute indirectly to keep the inferior classes in a state of abject poverty. According to the investigations of Herr von Brandt, former German Minister to Peking, and a man who has studied China profoundly, the land tax in China reaches £5,250,000, being about 3s. per acre in the North, with a maximum of 13s. in the South. This is not much when we consider the intense activity of Chinese agriculture, which extracts from the soil almost everywhere two harvests annually. The total of the Budget, according to the same authority, reaches 100,000,000 taels, or £15,000,000. Other authorities estimated it as high as £24,000,000, but even this is not excessive. The following is Von Brandt’s account of the different sources of revenue of the Chinese Empire: