The age-herald., 1900-07-22

came Secretary of War, and in the ten years following he studied and mastered I the whole intricate system of his country s government. The year 1S65 saw him stiil ~ l poor young man, but when he was ap7 1 pointed Governor of Kiang Su he began to 1 accumulate money. In I<iang Su are the great salt mines or 1 China, and the Governor of the district mas l the privilege of farming the monopoly Then too, he began to round up the man l darins in his province. They tried to teil 1 this young, quiet-mannered Governor that l they were only earning bare living out OF | their fees, but he astonished them by ex7 | hibiting complete knowledge of their | methods ,and soon 50 per cent of tnelr emoluments went into his capacious pockets
 In 1863 came the great rebellion, and Gen | eral Gordon began his triumphal march l against the insurgents. Li Hung Chahg | the war genius of the Empire, became ms | right-hand man, and after four years or 1 marvellous success on the field his Emperor | loaded him down with more honors and | emoluments In 1865 he appointed Gov ernor General of the Liang King provinces, l with four Viceroys and 1,SO0 mandarins uh- l der his orders, and in absolute control or 1 the salt tax, the rice tax, the sampan tax
 and the house tax-all infnitesimal charges l on the individual-but when one directs the
 mulching of 190,0O0 people it is the fractions l that count.
 1 In 1868 his wealth was estimated by for 1 eigners who knew him intimately to be l $45, 100000. Still he remained in imperial | favor, and in 1872 came his eliminating l triumph, when he was mode Viceroy of Pe- 1 Chi Ii, the imperial province, with palace 1 in the royal city. and practically the collec- l ton of all the national funds under his | control.
 Here he devolved a peculiar method of l sem-moral squeezing His emissaries vis- | ited every province regularly and took good | care to guard the mass of the people from l extortion at the hands of the mandarins. l An officer found guilty of demanding or ac- l cepting more than the set amount of tax ation was promptly dismissed from his
 office in disgrace. Lii Hung Chang saw that l with such an immense population there was no necessity to crush the individual | with heavy taxes He insisted on one-half
 of every tax being turned into his hands, l and one-half of these receipts he handed | over in turn to the imperial treasury, keep l ing the balance for himself.
 There was no false pretense about it. I The Emperor, happy in the fact that never 1 before had he found man who could drag such enormous sums out of the hands of l the mandarins, was more than satisfied l with the share that came to him, and he knew very well that his minister was. di- i Viding equally with him.
 AS Viceroy of Pc Chi Lii, Ii Hung Chang l started to build navy He let contracts Ior snipS, armament and dockyardS and, beginning to mingle with Europeans in this l way, soon came to see a vista of new pos- l abilities for the acquiring of wealth. He was chief promoter, and is today principal owner of the China Merchant Steam Nayi- l gatlon Company, the only native steamship nne Tn existence, with monopoly of all internal and most of the coast traffic The fiutcuation in the value of silver gave him chance for the accumulation of more millions by skillful manipulation of de- poslts In the great Hong Kong and Shang- nal Bank, of which he is now one of the largest shareholder. In 1877 the members Of the Diplomatic Corps at Pekin presented a memorandum to the Emperor, begging for the establishment of an exact system of coinage. The Viceroy told them bandly that he would see about it. He has been seeing about it ever since. The sale of titles and honors a recog- nlZed perquiSite of the Viceroy of Pc Chi Lii, was in his hands for several years. and his policy was to charge "all the traf- nc would bear' to merchants who were able and willing to pay for handles to their. names or the right to wear gold buttons on their caps. In 1894, when he became commander-in-chief of the Chinese forcess he was visited by dozens of contractors but it may be said to his credit that hef listened to none of their advances possibly, because their "offers' were so small int comparison with his vast wealth that he chose to overlook them; possibly, too, be- cause he wished to give them the idea that he was not a man who could be bought In addition to the many sources of reve- nue mentioned he has had percentages of very large customs duties, the export silk tax, the jade mines and municipal earn ings of many cities. No one in the empire
 can approach Ii Hung Chang in the hold he has on the common people of China They know of his great riches, but they also know that for forty years he has
 stood between them and the extortions of petty mandarins. . His fortune is an accumulation of mites and atoms