A curious article on ' Ni is published by the Presse of Vienna. writer says that Nihilist doctrines first made their appearance in China in the tenth century, when Buddhism began to take the place of the old national religion based on the worship of the forces of nature. The ductriue of the Nirvana, the extinction of the individual, was taken in its material sense, and the State, society, and the family were represented as only deserving of destruction. A succession of bad harvests, which caused a general famine, inclined masses of the people to support the Nihil tendency to pull down all existing instit tious; and the consequence was a series of civil wars which put an end to no fewer ti six dynasties in single century. The reign of Nihilism, which produced anarchy and chays in China, was succeeded in the middle of the eleventh century by that of Svcialism, under Wang-ngan-tche, a leader immeasurably superior, we are told, to Proudhon, Lassalle, Bakounin, or Karl Marx. Wang" ngan-tche thought' he would be able to construct on the social basis which Nihilism had levelled a new organi humanity. He was born in 1027, the most hostile of his biographers praise his learning, intelligence, and eloquence. The ability and success with which he re-fated the arguments of the Nihilists made him popular; and the Emperor Tehen-tsung invited him: to his Court and trade him hi Chief Minister. In1069this Chinese Soci was the most powerful man in the Empire next to the Emperor himself. He first issued a decree abolishing all personal property in land; the whole country was to be cultivated by the State, and its produce equally divided among the people. Other decrees placed all private industries under State management and made them State property, and compelled all capitalists to pay to the State a fifth of their capital every year for five years, Thus the State became the sole possessor of property, both in land and in money, and the only employer of labour; there were neither rich nor poor in the country, and each man derived his only means of subsistence from the State. It soon appeared, however, that this complicated machinery gave" rise to many abuses the State proved, as might have been expected, incapable of discharging the gigantic task which had been imposed upon it, and unprincipled persons took advantage of its didiculties to enrich themselves by peculation. Seze-ma-Kua most eminent of Chinese poets, got up a powerful opposition to the Socialist. Minister, who, however, maintained his system for 15 years, At the end of that period the Emperor died, and his widow, who was appointed Regent, recalled Sze-mia-Kuang to the post of Prime Minister, which he had been obliged to vacate on' the appointment of Wang-ngan-tche, his was the end both of Socialism and of lism in China, Miscellaneous Entelligence, previous at tome
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.