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and although they do not make many trips during the year, the aggregate of their cargoes must be very great. To say that the total duties for the year only amounts to 33,000 taels is altogether too ridiculous. Such a sum must represent more nearly a week's collection than a year's." In truth, there can be no doubt that, like all other constituents of the national revenue which are under Chinese control, the nominal yield of the native customs is only a small fraction of what it would be were the administration honest.

It has been already noted that in 1885 a treaty between Great Britain and China provided that foreign opium, in addition to import duty of 30 taels per picul, should thenceforth pay, at the port of entry, a sum of 80 taels per picul in commuta- tion of all subsequent charges in the shape of likin, etc. The proceeds of these imposts, aggregating between six and seven million taels annually, were ultimately assigned to meet the requirements of the Admiralty Board in Peking. Simultaneously with the introduction of the above system, orders were issued to the provincial authorities that the duties and likin on native opium should be shown in a special return and should not be used for provincial purposes. Wide areas in China are devoted to the cultivation of the poppy. In 1881 a competent observer estimated that theproduction of opium in the southwestern parts of the Empire amounted to 224,000 piculs, which, were it taxed in the same ad valorem proportion as