TENURE OF LAND IN CHINA. Probably Half This Soil The Property of The Peasants who Till it.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 400, 7 September 1889, Page 3

TENURE OF LAND IN CHINA. Probably Half This Soil The Property of The Peasants who Till it.

In a papor lately read before the Shanghai Asiatic Society by Mr Jamieson it was ttatcd that although the Emperor theoreti cally owns everything under the sun, the private owner of land in China has as absolute a property in it as he can have underany government. Wasteorabandoned land?, as well as those for which there are no heirs, revert to the crown, which can also annex private land for public purposes. Land tax is in all cases paid direct to the Government, and there are no zemindars and no ' farmers general ' in China. There are two main tenures, military and common, the former applying onlj to certain military colonies and to grants made to his followers by the Manehu conqueror of the country in 1644. Ninety-nine hundredths of the land is held under common tenure, which has three conditions attached <"o it — viz. , the payment of the land tax, the supply on demand of statute labour to the authorities, and the payment of a tine in alienation. For the land tax the hsien, or district, is the unit, and i 3 assessed at a fixed sum. by the Government, which the district magistrate has to pay whether he receives it or not. But as a rule he has a surplus. In the event of some great calamity, such as deathorinundations, he may get a remission, the benefit of which reaches the people. The supplying of statute labour has almost fallen into disuse, which, perhaps, accounts for the bad state of the public works in China. The fees are payable on tho transfer of land by sale of mortgage, succession or inheritance. Probably half the soil of China is the property of the peasants who till it. Large tracts are owned oy retired officials and their families, usually called • the literati and gentry,' who lease it to small farmers on a kind of customary tenancy, at wil', the rent, which is paid in kind, amounting to half the crop in the best foil and diminishing as the land is poorer. The rent is paid as soon as the crop is harvested, so that rents are seldom in arrear and evictions are very rare. The laws arc all in favour of the tenant, who pays no taxes of any kind, and when he leaves takes everything with him, including his house. The soil is &o rich that the farms are generally very small, and indeed it is estimated that a square mile is capablo of supporting a population of 3,840 persons. Within these broad lines there is e\ery variety of arrangement respecting the ownership of land ; there are absolute sales, and sales in which the vendor has a right to claim something more if the land rise? in value ; some sales are revocable, some irrevocable, the former being apparently in the nature of mortgages, the limitation period being thirty years. Again, there is a dual ownership in land, one man owning the surface, tho other being regarded as the owner of the soil and liable to all the taxes, and there seems to be a good deal of Chinese law in the respective rights of the two owners as to house building and laying coffins in the common ground. The ownership of land is established in the usual way by deeds registered in the district offices.