Travels in China, Sir John Barrow [phonics readers txt] 📗

So, in China, the Emperor at the vernal equinox, after a solemn offering to the God of Heaven and Earth, goes through the ceremony of holding the plough, an example in which he is followed by the viceroys and governors and great officers in every part of the empire. This ceremony, though, in all probability, the remains of a religious institution, is well calculated to give encouragement to the labouring peasantry, whose profession, thus honourably patronized, cannot fail to be pursued with more energy and cheerfulness than where it receives no such marks of distinction. Here merchants, tradesmen, and mechanics, are considered far beneath the husbandman. So far from obtaining the honours attendant on commerce in the ancient city of Tyre, "whose merchants were princes, whose traffickers were the honourable of the earth"—or the ancient immunities granted in Alfred's reign, by which an English merchant, who had made three foreign voyages by sea, was raised to the rank of nobility, the man who, in China, engages in foreign trade is considered as little better than a vagabond. The home trade only is supposed to be necessary, and deserving the protection of government. It allows all goods and manufactures, the produce of the country, to be interchanged between the several provinces, on payment only of a small transit duty to the state, and certain tolls on the canals and rivers, applied chiefly to the repairs of flood-gates, bridges, and embankments. This trade, being carried on entirely by barter, employs such a multitude of craft of one description or other, as to baffle all attempts at a calculation. I firmly believe, that all the floating vessels in the world besides, taken collectively, would not be equal either in number or tonnage to those of China.

Foreign trade is barely tolerated. So very indifferent the court of Pekin affects to be on this subject, that it has been hinted, on some occasions, and indeed serious apprehensions have been entertained in Europe, that they were half disposed to shut the port of Canton against foreigners. The treatment, indeed, which strangers meet with at this place, from the inferior officers of government, is of itself sufficient to exclude them, and such as could only be tolerated in consideration of the importance of the trade, and especially in the supply of tea; an article which, from being about a century ago a luxury, is now become, particularly in Great Britain, one of the first necessities of life.

The taxes raised for the support of government are far from being exorbitant or burthensome to the subject. They consist in the tenth of the produce of the land paid usually in kind, in a duty on salt, on foreign imports, and a few smaller taxes, that do not materially affect the bulk of the people. The total amount of taxes and assessments which each individual pays to the state, taken on an average, does not exceed four shillings a year.

With such advantages, unknown in most other countries, and such great encouragement given to agriculture, one would be led to suppose that the condition of the poor must be less exposed to hardships here than elsewhere. Yet in years of scarcity many thousands perish from absolute want of food. And such years so frequently occur in one province or another, either from unfavourable seasons of drought or inundations, the ill effects of both of which might probably be counteracted by proper management, or by an honest application of the sums of money voted for the purpose out of the public revenue, that government has seldom been able to lay up in store a sufficient quantity of grain to meet the necessities of the people in seasons of general calamity; and they have no other relief to depend on but this precarious supply, seldom administered with alacrity, on account of the number of hands it has to pass through. This leads them to commit outrages against their wealthier neighbours. There are few public charities; and it is not a common custom to ask alms. I did not observe a single beggar from one extremity of China to the other, except in the streets of Canton. Nor are there any poor-laws griping the industrious husbandman and labourer, to feed the lazy, and to feast those who have the care of them; no paupers of any description, supported from funds that have been levied on the public. The children, if living and, if not, the next of kin, must take care of their aged relations; and the parents dispose of their children in what manner they may think best for the family interest. As several generations live together, they are subsisted at a much cheaper rate than if each had a separate household. In cases of real distress the government is supposed to act the parent; and its good intentions in this respect cannot be called in question; whenever it appears that any of its officers, through neglect or malice, have withheld grain from the poor, they are punished with singular severity, sometimes even with death.

Another great advantage enjoyed by the Chinese subject is, that the amount of his taxes is ascertained. He is never required to contribute, by any new assessment, to make up a given sum for the extraordinary expences of the state, except in cases of rebellion, when an additional tax is sometimes imposed on the neighbouring provinces. But in general the executive government must adapt its wants to the ordinary supplies, instead of calling on the people for extraordinary contributions. The amount of the revenues of this great empire has been differently stated. As the principal branch, the land-tax, is paid in kind, it is indeed scarcely possible to estimate the receipt of it accurately, as it will greatly depend on the state of the crop. An Emperor who aims at popularity never fails to remit this tax or rent, in such districts as have suffered by drought or inundation. Chou-ta-gin gave to Lord Macartney, from the Imperial rent-roll, a rough sketch of the sums raised in each province, making them to amount in the whole to about sixty-six millions sterling; which is not more than twice the revenue of the state in Great Britain, exclusive of the poor's-rate and other parochial taxes, in 1803, and which gives, as I before observed, if reduced to a capitation, the sum of about four shillings for each individual, whilst that of Great Britain, by an analogous computation, would amount to about fifteen times that sum. I should suppose, however, that a shilling in China, generally speaking, will go as far as three in Great Britain.

From the produce of the taxes the civil and military establishments, and all the incidental and extraordinary expences, are first paid on the spot where they are incurred, out of the provincial magazines, and the remainder is remitted to the Imperial treasury in Pekin to meet the expences of the court, the establishment of the Emperor, his palaces, temples, gardens, women, and princes of the blood. The confiscations, presents, tributes, and other articles, may be reckoned as his privy purse. The surplus revenue remitted to Pekin, in the year 1792, was stated to be about 36,000,000 ounces of silver, or 12,000,000l. sterling. It is a general opinion among the Chinese part of his subjects, that vast sums of the surplus revenue and such as arise from confiscations are annually sent to Moukden, the capital of Mantchoo Tartary; but this should appear to be an erroneous opinion founded on prejudice. Notwithstanding the enormous wealth of Ho-tchung-tang, that filled the Imperial coffers, the present Emperor found it necessary the same year to accept an offering, as it was called, of 500,000 ounces of silver, or 166,666l. sterling, from the salt merchants of Canton, and sums of money and articles of merchandize from other quarters, to enable him to quell a rebellion that was raging in one of the western provinces. He even sent down to Canton a quantity of pearls, agates, serpentines, and other stones of little value, in the hope of raising a temporary supply from the sale of them to foreign merchants. The Emperor of China, therefore, has not so much wealth at his disposal as has usually been imagined. He even accepts of patriotic gifts from individuals, consisting of pieces of porcelain, silks, fans, tea, and such-like trifling articles, which afterwards serve as presents to foreign embassadors, and each gift is pompously proclaimed in the Pekin gazette.

The chief officers in the civil departments of government, independent of the ministers and the different boards in Pekin, according to the statement of Tchou-ta-gin, with their salaries and allowances reduced into silver, will be seen from the following table, which, with that of the military establishment, is published in the appendix to the authentic account of the embassy by Sir George Staunton; and as they differ very little from the court calendar published in 1801, and as I have occasion to make a few remarks on them, as well as on that of the population, which will be given in a subsequent chapter, I have not hesitated to introduce them into the present work.