Tr is often a theme for wonder the Empire of China, with an admi tration so fall of abuses, holds together as it does. Though rebellious have ever and anon seemed to threaten its existence, and though it has appeared like a tottering wall and a.broken hedge, it holds its place. It loses territory and regains it. It sends its surplus population to other lauds, and it holds up against famines and trials of strength that are found too severe for almost every other nation. The oldest political adage speaks of long minorities as peculiarly dangerous to kingdoms, but these dynastic inefficiencies do not seem to touch the vital strength that is inherent in this huge, unwieldly, but strangely enduring Empire. This power of "last" is owing largely to the character of the people. They have a capacity for holding on and holding out. The most conservative of realms is the longest if not the best conserved.
It is perhaps worth while to consider why this is the case. It results mainly from the national character; but if we look carefully at China and compare it with other Empires, we shall see that the Middle Kingdom is exempt from many of the perils which have wrecked great States. The Chinese have avoided the dangerous institution of slavery. This is @ point worth noticing, for slavery produces two results which are injurious to national well-being. If there is a large influx of slave Jabour, a haughty contempt for menial work is produced, and this spreads all over the country and becomes the prominent idea of the upper and middle classes, so that the rauk and file of the citizens become idle, self-indulgent, and useless. The upper class in China may be greedy and dishonest, but they are not idle. The Romans bought slaves to do their work, taught them the elegant and civilizing arts which beautify life, and as these arts be. came the trade of the despised class, they gave up learning them themselves and thereby lost the refining influences which such arts diffuse. Now, such literary and artistic culture 2s the Chinese have is the possession of the upper class, and is everywhere respected. There is a wide difference between a man who reads little but has fa respect for reading, and " man who regards book learning as a thing to teach his slave but not an occupation sufficiently dignified for himself. The Chinese have never been large slave holders, and their labouring classes are not embruted by bonds or stigmatized by caste. In this there is a distinct point of superiority over the Roman Empire, and freedom from @ corroding disease is so far health.
Another reason why China is conserved is the absence of a moneyed aristocracy who enrich themselves with. out benefit to the world. Officials in China amass great wealth, but they are compelled to spend it. They may squeeze or extort money from those below them, but if they are known to hoard they are very soon mulcted by the officials above them. China has no Pomponius Atticus or Crassus, The wealth of the country is not in fow hands as it is in too many bloated States. Another evil sign in Rome was the aversion to wedlock. The wide-spread dislike to the burdens of married life which prevailed amongst the upper and middle classes was a morbidsentiment which Augustus strove to check by legal pressure, and civil disabilities were enacted against those who would not marry. China is freer from this cause of weakness even than England.
China is strong, then, in the absence or numerical insignificance of her servile class, in the number and industry of her peasant proprietors, and in the system of early marriages and the encouragement offered to wedlock. Two of these conditions are likely to be permanent. Slavery can never exist
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.