Taels. Salary of civil and military officers, a tithe of the impost on lands 7,773,500 Pay of 600,000 infantry, three taels per month, half in money and half in rations 21,600,000 Pay of 242,000 cavalry, at four taels per month 11,616,000 Mounting the cavalry, twenty taels each 4,840,000 Uniforms for both arms of the service, four taels 3,368,000 Arms and ammunition 842,000 Navy, revenue cutters 13,500,000 Canals and transportation of revenue 4,000,000 Forts, artillery, and munitions of war 3,800,000 ---------- 71,339,500 This, according to his calculation, shows a surplus of nearly twenty millions of taels every year. But the outlays for quelling insurrections and transporting troops, deficiency from bad harvests, defalcation of officers, payments to the tribes and princes in Mongolia and Ílí, and other unusual demands, more than exceed this surplus. In 1833, the _Peking Gazette_ contained an elaborate paper on the revenue, proposing various ways and means for increasing it. The author, named Na, says the income from land tax, the gabel, customs and transit duty, does not in all exceed forty millions of taels, while the expenditures should not much transcend thirty in years of peace.[166] This places the budget much lower than other authorities, but the censor perhaps includes only the imperial resources, though the estimate would then be too high. The pay and equipment of the troops is the largest item of expenditure, and it is probable that here the apparent force and pay are far too great, and that reductions are constantly made in this department by compelling the soldiers to depend more and more for support upon the plats of land belonging to them. It is considered the best evidence of good government on the part of an officer to render his account of the revenue satisfactorily, but from the injudicious system which exists of combining fiscal, legislative, and judicial functions and control in the same person, the temptations to defraud are strong, and the peculations proportionably great. ~OFFICERS’ SALARIES AND THE LAND-TAX.~