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Besides the taxes given above, there are the stamps necessary upon many documents, etc. These are classed under the general head of ‘stamp receipts,’ and include registration fees, stamps for patent medicines and legal documents, license fees for hunting, civil lawsuit stamps, examination fees, charges and dues levied according to the Customs law, and other regulations accompanied therewith, etc. In 1875–76 the stamp receipts amounted to 700,751 yen; in 1885–86, to 709,701 yen; in 1895–96, to 900,980 yen; and in 1903–04, to 13,532,121 yen.

The per capita charges of the taxes and of the national debts had reached in 1900 the sums indicated below:

In Japan, the practice of issuing Government bonds for public loans began with the foreign public loan (bearing 9 per cent. interest) which was issued at London in April, 1870. Since then the necessity of undertaking public works and measures of various descriptions has led to a frequent issue of public loans, there being twenty-one issues in all. A brief synopsis is here given of the various public loans, together with the various objects they were designed to meet.

1. The public loan issued during the Restoration of 1868. This financed one of the greatest reformations of institutions in Japan. During this reformation various old customs were changed, many bad influences were removed, and a great number of civil and military works were initiated. The financial requirements of this historic reformation were met by the Act of March, 1873, called ‘New and Old Public Bonds Act.’ By this Act, the debts which had been contracted by the feudal Princes were converted into Imperial public loans. Consequently, two kinds of public loans were issued—i.e., the