I shall next briefly describe the finance of the Tibetan Government. It must be remembered, however, that this subject is extremely complicated and hardly admits of accurate explanation even by financial experts, for nobody except the Revenue Officials can form an approximate idea of the revenue and expenditure of the Government. All that I could get from the Minister of Finance was that a considerable margin of difference existed according to the year. This must partly come from the fact that taxes are paid in kind, and as the market is necessarily subject to fluctuation even in such an exclusive place as Tibet, the Government cannot always realise the same amount of money from the sale of grain and other commodities collected by the Revenue authorities. Of course anything like statistical returns are unknown in Tibet, and my task being hampered by such serious drawbacks, I can only give here a short account of how the taxes are collected, how they are paid and by what portion of the people, and how the revenue thus collected is disbursed, and such matters, which lie on the surface so that I could easily observe and investigate them.

The Treasury Department of the Papal Government is called Labrang Chenbo, which means the large Kitchen of the Lama. It is so-called, because various kinds of staples are carried in there as duty from the land under his direct jurisdiction, and from landlords holding under a sort of feudal tenure. As there are no such conveniences as drafts or money orders, these staples have to be transported directly from each district to the central treasury, whatever the distance. But the taxpayer has one solace: he can easily obtain, on his way to the treasury, the service of post-horses, such service on such occasions being compulsory. The articles thus collected consist of barley, wheat, beans, buck-wheat, meal and butter. But from districts in which custom-houses are established various other things, such as coral gems, cotton, woollen and silk goods, raisins and peaches are accepted. Other districts pay animal-skins, and thus the large Kitchen is an ‘omnium gatherum.’ Truly a strange method of collecting taxes!

One peculiarity in Tibet is the use of an abundant variety of weights and measures; there are twenty scales for weighing meal, and thirty-two boxes for measuring grain. Bo-chik is the name given to a box of the average size, and it measures about half a bushel. But tax-collectors use, when necessity arises, measures half as large or half as small as these, so that the largest measure holds three quarters of a bushel, while the smallest holds a quarter. The small ones are generally used to measure the staples from provinces such as the native place of the Dalai Lama, or such as have personal relations to some high officials of the Government. Thus, though a favored district is supposed to pay the same number of bushels as the others, it pays in reality only one-half of what the most unfortunate district has to pay. Nor is the measure used for one district a fixed one; it may change from year to year. Suppose one of the most favored districts has produced a great rascal, or rebel, or has done anything that displeases the Government. The whole people of that district are responsible for it; they are obliged to pay by the largest measure, that is, twice as much as they did in the preceding year. Thus the various kinds of offences make it necessary to have thirty-two varieties of measures and twenty of weight. It is to be noted however that when the Government has to dispose of those stuffs, it never uses the larger measures, though if too small ones are used, it certainly causes complaints on the part of the buyers; hence the middle-sized ones are mostly used. All expenses of Government, such as salaries for priests and officers and wages for mechanics and tradesmen in its service are paid with an average measure.

The chief expense of the Government is, as I have stated before, that for the service of the Bu??ha Shakyamuni. The money used for the repairing of temples and towers, and for the purchase of stone lanterns and other furniture amounts to a large sum; but by far the greater proportion is spent for butter, which is used instead of oil for the myriads of lights which are kept burning day and night. The stands arranged in rows in the temple of the Bu??ha in Lhasa alone number no less than two thousand five hundred and in some special cases ten thousand or even a hundred thousand lamps are lighted, all of them burning butter of a high price. In Tibet the substitution of vegetable oil for mal is considered, not exactly sin, but at least a pollution and desecration of Bu??ha; not a few Lamas leave a clause in their wills that rapeseed oil should not be offered for their souls after death. In front of the image of the Bu??ha in Lhasa are placed twenty-four large light-stands of pure gold. These and some others have big oil-holders, large enough to hold five gallons of mal. Almost all the mal used for the service of the Bu??ha is furnished by the Treasury of the Government, though a small part of it is offered by religious people.

Costly mal used, in former times, to be offered by Mongolians, to the great relief of the Papal Treasury, but the offering has recently been stopped entirely. The burdens of the Tibetan people themselves have been proportionately increased, but as the fixed rate of the tax cannot be increased the bigger measures are used more frequently.

In each province there are two places where the collection of taxes is made for the Government, one of which is the temple, and the other the Local Government office; for the people are divided into two classes: (1) those who are governed by the temple and (2) those who are governed by the Local Government. They pay their taxes to the Central Government through their respective Governors. In each local district, there is what is called a Zong. This was originally a castle built for warlike purposes, but in time of peace it serves as a Government office, where all the functions of Government are carried on, so taxes are also collected there. The Zong is almost always found standing on the top of a hillock of about three hundred feet and a Zongpon (chief of the castle), generally a layman, lives in it. He is the chief Governor of the district and collects taxes and sends the things or money he has gathered to the Central Government. The Zongpon is not paid by the Central Government directly, but subtracts the equivalent of his pay from the taxes he has collected. The Central Government does not send goods or money to the Local Government except on such few occasions as need special help from the national Treasury. The people under the direct jurisdiction of the Central Government are sometimes made to pay a poll-tax. The people who belong to the nobility and the higher class of priests are of course assessed by their landowners, but there is no definite regulation as to their payment to the Central Government; the people of some districts pay, while others are exempt.

Part of the work done by the Tibetan Minister of the Treasury is the management of the subscriptions of the people. Everything offered to the Bu??hist Temple and given to the priests at the time of the Great Assembly is at once paid into the Treasury, to be given out only by the order of the Minister of that department. Another business taken by the Minister is the household expenses of the Pope. These expenses are not fixed, and the Pope can draw out as much as he pleases within the limit of usage, and his own moderation. It is said that since the accession of the present Pope both the expenditure and the revenue have been greatly increased. The Minister of the Treasury has also to pay all the salaries of officials and priests in the service of the Papal Government. These expenses for salaries are very small, as compared with those of other countries, but the officials and priests derive an additional income from the land in their own possession.

Officers and priests in Tibet can each borrow fifteen hundred dollars from the Government at an interest of five per cent a year and they can lend it again at fifteen per cent, which is the current rate of interest in Tibet, though usurers sometimes charge over thirty per cent. Thus any officer can make at least ten per cent on fifteen hundred dollars without running much risk. If an officer or priest fails to repay the loan the amount is not subtracted from his next year’s loan. Compound interest is unknown in Tibet however long the debtor may prolong his payment; it is forbidden by the law. Another subsidy given by the Government is six dollars extra pay per annum to each priest of the Three Great Temples. In this connexion it must also be stated that the Three Great Temples just mentioned receive a vast amount of mal from the Government.

The supplementary resources of the Pope’s revenue are subscriptions from the members and laymen, the leases from meadow-lands in his personal possession, and profits acquired by his own trading, which is carried on by his own caravans. The Pope’s caravans must be distinguished from those of the Treasury Department.

The Treasury of the Grand Lama is called Che Labrang, which means the Lama’s kitchen on the hill, because the Lama’s palace is located on a hill. It is called Potala and the place is a castle, a temple, and a palace at once. As a castle it has no equal in Tibet, in view of the strength of its fortifications; as a temple, it can look down upon all other lamaseries of the country for elegance and gaudiness. As a palace, of course there is no building that surpasses it. But in spite of all this, there is a deplorable defect in its water supply. Within the high walls that defend the dwellers from the attacks of an enemy there is no well or spring whatever. The people have to go far away to get a bucket of water from a well which can only be reached by descending a hundred and fifty feet of stone steps and crossing another hundred and fifty feet of level ground. To reach the top of the hill one has to climb another three hundred feet, making the journey three quarters of a mile altogether. It is of course no easy work for the residents to carry water so far, and there are therefore many workers who make it their business to do this for them, charging about twelve cents per man a month. The aristocratic priests, who bear the title of Namgyal Tatsang, live in one part of the castle and number one hundred and sixty-five. They represent the highest type of the Tibetan priesthood and are all selected with great care, even physique and physiognomy being taken into consideration. They live in good style at the Pope’s personal cost.

The property of the Grand Lama, after his death, is divided in the following way: One-half of the property (in fact a little more than half) has to be divided among his relatives in his native place, and the remaining half is distributed as gifts among the priests of the Great Temples and those of the New Sect. In the case of an ordinary priest, if he leaves property worth five thousand dollars about four thousand is used in gifts to the priests and for the expense of lights, and almost all the remaining thousand is used for his funeral expenses, leaving perhaps three hundred to his disciples. In cases when a priest leaves very little money, his disciples are obliged to borrow money to supply the want of gifts and money for lights in his honor—a custom entirely foreign to the laity.