Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/149

Things would not be so very bad, in spite of parlous times, if all the receipts were paid, in one currency, into one central chest or account (as the foreign customs are); and if all payments were drawn in one currency from this one chest and remitted in one way. But, in the first place, all provinces have two main currencies of pure silver (several "touches") and copper cash (several qualities), the relation between which differs in each town every day. Besides this each province has its own "touch" and "weight" of a silver ounce; and some provinces use dollars chopped and unchopped, by weight and by piece, as well as pure silver; and the dollar exchange varies daily locally and centrally in regard to both copper cash and silver. Even this difficulty, which involves an enormous waste of time and energy, and opens the door to innumerable and inscrutable "squeezes," might be philosophically ignored if receipts and disbursements were lumped in one account,—if the venous blood were allowed a free course to the heart, and the arterial blood a clean run back to the extremities. But the Board of Revenue, which is as corrupt and conservative as the provinces, goes about its business in a very hand-to-mouth, rough-and-tumble sort of way. . . . Then each viceroy or governor disputes every new demand, and it is quite understood that some appropriations are intended to be more serious than others. Some simpleton of an honest man from time to time throws everything out of gear by allowing a truth to escape: the Board never lets a "flat" of this sort score in fact, even though he appear to do so in principle. A governor cannot be expected to show zeal for Yunnan copper when he knows that the