Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/133

so many parts out of a thousand.^[1] Likin is certainly not one of the ancient institutions of China, though there are some evidences that a cognate tax was imposed in old times. It is generally regarded as an impost of modern origin, having been first levied in 1852, when, owing to the great expenditures incurred in dealing with the Taeping rebellion, and owing to the reduced yield of land tax caused by the rebels' devastations, it became necessary to devise some new source of income. The then governor of Shantung, Li Hwei, seems to have conceived the idea of likin (or litôu, as he called it), but an organisation capable of collecting it profitably was not devised until 1854. That organisation consisted of a central bureau and several subordinate stations at all the large towns and at points along the main routes, whether by land or by water. The number of these stations depends upon the amount of trade in the district. Along the lower parts of the Grand Canal the stations are about twenty miles apart, but elsewhere they are not so numerous. Goods passing any of these stations have to pay a per-millage of their value, and if they have several stations they pay several times, until the payments aggregate a certain maximum. It will thus be seen that likin is, in fact, transit duty. There is a tariff of charges, but it receives little attention. What happens in practice is that the owner of the merchandise strikes the best