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GEOGRAPHICAL AND STATISTICAL.
339
accounts published in the Peking Gazette, it would appear that there are almost constant deficits, which the governors and high officers of provinces must make good by loans or extraordinary taxation.
The public revenue is mainly derived from three sources, namely, customs duties, licences, and a tax upon land. The customs duties fall more upon exports than im- ports; their total produce at the thirteen treaty ports open to Europeans amounted te Tls. 8,691,817, or £2,897,272 in 1863, and to Tls. 9,425,656, or £3,141,885 in 1868. To the amount collected in 1868 the foreign trade contributed Tls. 8,002,751, or £2,667,584, while the portion paid by Great Britain and British colonies in the same year was Tls. 6,706,365, or £2,235,455, or above 83 per cent. Besides this sum, the British trade paid transit duties to the amount of £1,117,727 in 1868, so that the total contribution of the same to the Imperial Exchequer was £3,353,782.
The population of China is very dense, but nothing accurate is known respecting the number of inhabitants, although official enumerations of the same are stated to have taken place at intervals since the year 703, or for more than eleven centuries. One of the causes of uncertainty regarding the population of the empire is that its limits are underfined, the imperial government claiming the allegiance of the inhabi- tants of many of the neighbouring territories, which appear to be more or less independent. According to the most reliable estimates, together with Chinese official returns, the area of the empire and its dependencies, real and asserted, may be set down, in round numbers, at about 200,000 geographical square miles, with a popula- tion of nearly 390 millions, distributed as follows:-
AREA.
POPULATION.
China proper Dependencies: Manchuria
Mongolia
Thibet
Corea...
Lieukhieu Islands
Other dependencies
...
+
+
-
•
***
geog. sq. miles. 60,857
367,633,000
18,000
61,000
3,000,000 3,000,000
A
30,600
4,100
6 000,000 8,000,000
100
500,000
25,000
1,500,000
199,667
389,633,000
Total
+
The standing military force of China consists of two great divisions, the first formed by the more immediate subjects of the ruling dynasty, the Tartars, and the second by the Chinese and other subject races. The latter, the main force upon which the imperial government can rely, form the so-called troops of the Eight Banners, and garrison all the great cities. but so as to be separated by walls and forts from the population. The Chinese forces are said to be composed of 600,000 men, scattered over the surface of the empire. The soldiers do not live in barracks, but in their own houses, pursuing as chief business some civil occupation, frequently that of day-labourers, and meeting only on certain occasions, pursuant to orders from the military chieftains. Trade and Commerce.
The value of the total commerce of China at the ports open to foreigners, in each of the five years 1864 to 1868, was as follows, according to the official returns of the Imperial Maritime Customs :-
Years.
Imports.
Exports.
Taels
£
Taels
£
1864
51,293,578
17,097,859
54,006,509
18,002,169
.865
61,844,158
20,614,719
60,054,631
20,018,211
1866
71,563,674
24,854,558
56,161,807
18,720,602
1867
69,329,741
23,109,914
57,895,713
19,298,571
1868
71,121,213
23,707,071
69,114,733
23,038,244
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