ABSTRACT
In the administrative sextet of the Peking Monarchy, the Department of Revenue was second in rank and influence, being outranked by only the Department of Civil Service. At the head of the department, above the regular ministers, there was a supervising minister, traditionally a Manchu and occasionally a Chinese. Then came the two ministers, (one Manchu and one Chinese) and four vice-ministers, (two Manchus and two Chinese). The duties of these officials, as defined by Ta Tsing Hui Tien, were as follows:-
Aside from these, the department was responsible, along financial lines, for currency and coinage, direction, control and custody of customs houses, granaries, and treasuries. It concurrently exercised the right of determining the standards of weights and measurements with the Department of Works, and issued commercial regulations, seafaring directions and passports to the seagoing adventurers. It presented all financial officials to the court. It initiated agricultural ceremonies, protected the forests and encouraged silk culture. Judicially, it reviewed all civil cases: it had concurrent jurisdiction with the Department of Justice if,
These important and various duties were performed by fourteen bureaus as follows :- 1. The Bureau of Kiangnan (Kiangsu and Anhui)
ince of Chihli drawn from the central treasury. c. To audit the accounts of the customs duties collected at
REVENUES: FINANCE AND TAXATION 187
188 THE GOVERNMENT OF CHINA
From the above list of varied duties, we can derive some general principles as to the division of the departmental duties. First, the bureaus were divided according to provinces and not services. As there were then twenty·two provo inces, but only fourteen bureaus, some had to go without specially allotted bureaus, others had to attend to the business of more than one province; thus the Bureau of Shantung had the Three Eastern Provinces; the Bureau of Ki· angnan had Kiangsu and Anhui; the Bureau of Fukien had Chihli and Fukien; the Bureau of Hukuang had Hupeh and Hunan; and the Bureau of Shensi had Shensi, Kansu and Sinkiang: the other nine were confined to their own respec· tive provinces. Besides the principal duties of auditing accounts of land·poll tax, each bureau, with the exception of the Bureau of Shansi, was assigned some other duties; the duties however were very poorly divided, resulting in an overcrowding of work for some, and the lack of work, for others. Taking the duties item by item, some like the tribute of furs, or the auditing of the accounts of the silk factory at Hangchow, or the ginseng monopoly, could easily be taken care of by a few clerks; while others, like the payment of employees, the supervision of customs, the salt monopoly really required big forces of workers for their efficient administration. Not even when viewed from the standard of the old monarchical regime was this division free from criticism.
