Page:Japan by the Japanese (1904).djvu/370

Account Bureau. The first has charge of the actual spending of the money, and has attached to it a Cash Office, or, rather, a series of Cash Offices of varying importance and size. The second has two offices attached to it, and has as its duty the gathering in of the taxes and other financial resources it the Government. These two offices are the Collection Office and the Custom House. The work of the Central Cash Office is performed by the Bank of Japan, which attends to the issue of notes and of loans.

The procedure in the Financial Department is as follows with regard to the Budget, which is prepared in the Account Bureau: The various departments of the Government send their estimates to this office, and from them I construct the Budget, and also the methods and means by which the various charges are to be met. This Budget is sent to the Cabinet, and from the Cabinet to the Emperor, after whose sanction it returns to the Cabinet and is presented to the Parliament. The Budget, having passed the Parliament, returns to my office. I authorize the Cash Offices, through the Cash Bureau, to pay to the various departments the respective sums necessary for their work, and at the same time notify the Tax Bureau how the money is to be raised. All through the financial year I am receiving the accounts of the actual revenues and expenditures as contrasted with the estimated. Finally, when the accounts have been received from all the departments, the total revenue and expenditure is made out and submitted to the Cabinet. Hence it goes to the Audit Bureau for examination, and is afterwards returned to the Cabinet. Then it receives the Imperial sanction, and is presented to the Parliament. In the case of extraordinary expenditures, the Cabinet consults the Account Bureau as to how these are to be met, whether by increased taxation or by loans, etc. To take the case of the recent North China expenditure. There was a general desire to rely upon an indemnity from China, and raise a loan to defray the expenses of the expedition. I objected to this because of the uncertainty of the payment of an indemnity, and also because it was an extremely unpropitious time to float a loan. I therefore recommended increased taxation upon articles of luxury, such as saké, beer, and tobacco. These new taxes were only adopted by the Government after much discussion. It was my hope that when the Chinese indemnity should be paid to utilize the sum, which would be so much free money, in doing away with the bad taxes—that is, such taxes as are levied upon the necessities of life, as opposed to those levied upon the luxuries. As it is now, the taxes upon what may be called the luxuries of life are not very high in Japan to what they are elsewhere in the world. The