We recently alluded to the remarkable (for China,) memorial presented by the Censor Yuen Ch'eng-yeh, and published in the Peking Gazette of the 7th September last. We drew attention to the fact that even in China isolated instances occurred of men able to appreciate the current of events and to suggest practical remedies for abuses. We quoted the Censor's own words, that the need of reorganisation was the lion which stood in the path of every reform in China, and predicted that the same difficulty would be always found arise. The Gazette of October 5th amply justifies both the statements of Yuen Ch'eng-yeh and the remarks made by us thereupon. Not one word of discredit is thrown on the statements made, and which had on the 30th August been already referred to the Board of Revenue for their consideration. We are therefore justified in the assumption that the facts stated are unquestionable, and that we have the highest official authority for the conclusion that it is known to the Chinese Government that the present fiscal system of the empire is injurious to trade and oppressive to the people. The Censor remarked that what really stood in the way was the need of reorg ganisation, and as @ striking comment. ary on this statement of his, we have the Imperial decree of the 5th October. Ordinary people would suppose that where such a statement was acknowledged, some sign would be shown of endeavouring to get rid of the stigma—not so the Peking Govern. ment. The dread of reorganisation is as severely felt at Peking as by any of the provincial authorities, and vapid words are the only reply. The Board requests that orders be issued to the Provincial Governments to take "such action as circumstance will permit," ands if glorying in its utter imbecility, again prays the throne to forbid the growth of opium. We should have thought that the experience of the last ten years might have convinced the Board of Revenue of the utter useless. ness of such measures. We find the Gazette taken up month after month with Imperial proclamations against the growth of opium, but we know for a fact that the poppy plant is cultivated in every portion of the Empire suited to its growth, and the Government itself is not ashamed to derive revenue from the open disregard of its own edicts. The Government at Peking knows this as well as it knows the evils of the li-kin system. It can write proclamations full of high sounding phrases, meant by their clap trap morality to catch the eye, and at the same time in practice it is itself particeps triminis, or rather, in many cases, the real instigator of the abuses it professes to regard with holy horror, the Government knows well that its uew proclamation will be as effective as those that it refers to as having been issued in 1869 and 1873, requiring the Viceroys and Provincial Governors to take measures towards abolishing the li-kin, and so contents itself with reissuing to them to take such action as circumstances will permit. We have had enough experience of Chinese ways to know now what this means. The circumstances are that the treasuries are poor, trade is strangled, and the people oppressed. It is like evoking the wolf with an empty stomach to have regard for the lamb grazing within his reach, to issue such instructions, and the Government knows this well.
"Let any of the barrier officials who may be found so unprincipled as to be guilty of peculation in the funds of the collectorate, and of harassing traders in transit, be stringently impeached and punished." In other words, let those who purchased from us the right of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.