Tibetan Finance.
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 Buḍḍha Shākyamuni. 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 Buḍḍha 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 Buḍḍha; 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 Buḍḍha 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 Buḍḍha 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 Buḍḍhist 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.