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MODE OF CALCULATING.

261

Pignorius, in his work De Servis, informs us that the ancient Roman slaves were familiar with the use of this instrument, which they employed in their calculations.*

* La Loubère, i. 230-1. 1691.

THE

CHAPTER IX.

REVENUES.

HE ancient sources of Siamese revenue, according to La Loubère, were a land-tax, somewhat capriciously levied; an impost on boats, at the rate of a tical (2s. 6d.) per fathom in length; a licence on the manufacture and sale of arrack; taxes on fruit-trees; produce of Crown lands; tribute from dependent countries; fines and confiscations; the personal services of all the subjects of Siam, estimated (in 1690) at 2 ticals (58.) per month; commercial monopolies. The ready money paid to the King annually was 600,000 crowns.*

Independently of the taxes paid in money or produce, all the subjects of Siam were formerly bound to give their personal services for six months of the year, to be employed in public works, or any species of labour for the King's profit. This time of servitude is now reduced to four months, but it is deemed the most productive source of the royal revenues.

The Treaty between Great Britain and Siam which it was my privilege to negotiate must lead to a complete revolution in the financial system of the country, as it destroys many of the present and most fruitful sources of revenue. That it will be more productive

La Loubère, p. 95.

SOURCES OF REVENUE.

263

hereafter to the State, while it confers very great benefits on the people, may safely be anticipated. The extension of privileges, of farms and monopolies, was really undermining all the foundations of the national prosperity, as was visible in the diminution of supplies, and the consequent decline of trade. A nobler emancipation than that brought about by the Treaty of Bangkok has seldom honoured the annals of a nation's history; and if the state of things described by Pallegoix in 1854* be compared and contrasted with that which the Treaty has secured for 1856, the results cannot but be welcomed by every commercial, civilized, and Christian

man.

The present sources of revenue are six:—

1. Tributes from princes dependent upon the King of Siam.

2. Land, garden, and plantation taxes.

3. Farms and monopolies.

4. Custom-house duties.

5. Tonnage and harbour charges.

6. Fines and confiscations.

The forms of tribute are very various: the token of subjection is mostly represented by trees or flowers of gold and silver, and gold-dust, which are presented (principally by the Malayan States) every three

years.

Most of the other dependent States pay tribute in the produce of the country, which the King either sells in Bangkok, or exports on his own account to

*Pallegoix, i. 302-312.

foreign markets, principally to China. Both Kings possess a number of square-rigged vessels, which trade with the islands of the Indian Archipelago, and with Canton, Amoy, Shanghae, and even as far north as the Gulf of Pecheli.

The land-tax is a tical per acre, and is collected at the rice-harvest; it is often exacted in produce, much to the loss of the cultivator. The lands are cadastred at the beginning of every new reign. Every fruittree is registered: a durian pays annually 1 tical (2s. 6d.); mango, mangosteen, and jack trees, a salung (7d.); a tuft of bamboos, a fuang (3d.). There are special taxes on sugar-plantations-on pepper, tobacco, and all the principal articles of production; and they had so grown in amount, and their collection had become so vexatious, as to lead to the abandonment of many agricultural enterprises. The new treaty provides that produce shall only pay one tax; which will relieve the producer from the annoyances that have lately so sorely and severely pressed upon his industry.

But the system of monopoly, gradually invading almost every article in use, and under which the dealing and right of purchase was confined to the person who purchased from the King the exclusive right to farm the article, was one of the most intolerable grievances ever inflicted on a people. Tradition says—but I know not the authority-that it was by the advice of an Englishman that a former King of Siam was induced to introduce the system of monopoly, as the simplest form of collecting the greatest may say, at all events, with some pride,

revenues.

I

FREE COMMERCE AND MONOPOLY.

265

that it was an Englishman who overthrew the system, and was enabled to persuade the King and the great nobles that monopolies were pernicious to the country, and not profitable to the treasury; and that though there might be a present sacrifice on their abandonment, free interchange would be found, in the long-run, a wiser and better policy than that of restraints and impediments. "But what are we to do during the transition from one state of things to another? How can we make the present sacrifices which you expect from us?" were questions frequently put to me in Siam. To which I could only answer: That free commerce was buoyant and elastic, and soon made for itself new channels; that the period of transition would neither be so long, nor the sacrifice so great, as the Siamese anticipated; that a change of the existing system was called for, alike by the evidence of its own mischievousness at home, and by the fair and friendly expostulations of other nations, who felt that they also were injured by what was so injurious to Siam; that one monopoly had followed in the footsteps of another monopoly, till production was checked, trade diminished and menaced with extinction; that a change would be alike acceptable to the people of Siam and the world at large; that nations were more and more brought into contact with one another, by easier and cheaper communications, by the general diffusion of knowledge and civilization, by new wants, by the augmentation of wealth, by greater commercial enterprise, and by the great tide of tendency which could not be resisted, and which it was not safe to attempt to resist; that

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