Owing to the large requirements of a peace army of 1,000,000, and the necessity for protecting frontiers stretching for over 11,000 miles, the Ministry of Finance had undoubtedly great difficulty in meeting the demands of the War Department. The requirements of the navy were also continually growing, with the result that less was available for the land forces. But if the Minister of Finance[53] had confined himself to his rôle of collector of revenue whereby to satisfy all the needs of the State, it could never have been suggested that the money so collected was spent except in accordance with actual requirements, for the decision as to which demands were the most urgent would not have been within this official’s province. As a matter of fact, our finances were managed in so curious a manner that the Finance Minister was not only the collector, but also the greatest expender of State moneys! Besides having to bear the ever-increasing outlay in his own department—for establishment, for expenses connected with the collection of taxes and the sale of Government liquor—he formed in his own Ministry subsections of the other Ministries, such as Ways and Communications, War, Navy, Education, Interior, Agriculture, and Foreign Affairs. So equipped, he planned, built, and administered the great Eastern Chinese Railway without any reference to the Minister of Ways and Communications; organized and commanded two army corps, one of Frontier Guards, and the other of guards for the railway, and actually chose the type of gun for their armament without reference to the Minister of War; initiated and managed a commercial fleet on the Pacific Ocean, and ran a flotilla of armed river steamboats, which might be regarded as the duty of the Naval Ministry. As regards the work of the Department of Education, the Finance Minister founded the higher technical institutions; as regards the sphere of Ministries of Interior and Agriculture, the Finance Minister had the most important administration—the so-called “alienated” strip of land set aside for the Eastern Chinese Railway—and the building of towns and villages, and the decision of questions concerning the taking up of land and its cultivation; as regards the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Finance Minister conducted negotiations with the highest representatives of the Chinese Administration, concluded treaties, and maintained his commercial and diplomatic agents in different parts of China and Korea. There is, I believe, a proverb to the effect that “charity begins at home.”[54] Is it to be wondered at, therefore, that the grants for the pet projects of the Finance Minister were more liberal than those for corresponding services required by the other Ministries? The appropriations for public education were cut down, but many millions were spent in constructing huge buildings for polytechnic institutes in St. Petersburg and Kieff, magnificent blocks for the Excise Department, and perfect palaces for officials.