The evening times., 1900-03-24
NEWEKTORTIONS INCHINA
The DOwager Empress in Urgent
Need of Cash.
Revenues Of the Empire Not Sufii-
cient 10 supply Her Imperial Maj
Soleum for Her Final Resting
PIacc-A SpoiIs system i'm Vogue.

PHILADELPHIA, Pa, March PA let
ter to the Philadelphia Record" under
date Of Hinghua, China, says:
The Empress Dowager is sorely in need
of ready cash. She is trying to train and
equip an army and buy or build modern
fleet She has also been building for her
self magnificent mausoleum, which has
already cost fabulous sum, and which
she is said TO have determined to make the
most costly monument ever built.
To meet these extraordinary and i'm
portant expenses OF the state it is nee
essary to resort to extreme measures.
Any civilized country would meet the
emergency with a few additional taxes in
its budget. but China has no such modern
contrivance, and If she had she would not
know how to use it.
The trouble with the Chinese taxes is
that they are nearly all lost on the way to
Pekin. Formerly it did not make so
much difference, because the Imperial
Maritime Customs Service at the open
ports. conducted by foreigners for the Chi
nese Government, furnished regular and,
ample income All this has been mort
gagged for years to. come 10 pay the debt
incurred by the japanese war indemnity
of sl0O 900. 900 in gold.
So her Imperial Highness is short Of pin
money. She has sent out a foraging party
in the person of an aged Manchu official
Of the ultra conservative type, who is call
ed Kang Vi. This gentleman now enjoys
the distinction of being the best-hated and
most-feared man in the Empire. He has
al least this virtue-he is fulfilling TO the
letter the instructions of his imperial mis-
tress. 8
He has already earned for himself the
title of Lord High Extortioner-" He
spent a month in Shanghai, Nanking, ard
Soochow, near the mouth of the Yangtse,
and, it is claimed on good authority,
increased the annual imperial revenues to
the amount Of 81, SOC. 600 in gold. How
much his own private revenues have in
creased in the meantime is not yet made
public.
His method has the merit of simplicity
at least, and II does not require a SheT-
man or a Gladstone to conceive or to
execute it. Upon arrival at a provincial
capital he at once begins an investiga-
tion of the probable income of each Off
cial In few days he submits to each
what sum he thinks he should add 20 his
contribution to the imperial exchequer.
OF course, this suggestion is followed
by pleas of poverty by the officer; but
in the end the unhappy official yields,
for the present. at least. II the demand
is really too great, and the victim re-
fuses. the throne is promptly memorial
lied that said official has been guilty of
maladministration; and in every case such
a report by the Lord High Extortioner is
followed by dismissal rom Office, and, gen.
orally, degradation in 'ank, and sometimes
severer punishment.
For example, Shen Tun-ho. a Taotai |
Of Shanghai, educated at Cambridge. Eng |
land. and said to be one of the ablest |
and broadest men in the empire, has been
not only cashiered but condemned to work
on the military roads His real crime was |
that he had been too honest to amass suf- |
hecient wealth to buy of his tormeutor |
Doubtless the fact that he was progressive
and had seen the opposite side of the
world, which Kang vi firmly holds with all
men OF his class to be fat. lad something
to do with the determination to ruin this |
able and honorable servant of an un- |
grateful Government.
Another source of revenue discovered by !
this far-seeing political economist is re- |
trenchment by closing up the Government |
military and science schools. An item of |
s45. 600 gold annually was saved by this |
plan at Nanking. How many more of these |