14th Aug. Our first impression of the government of China is that it is an absolute despotism. The Emperor is all-powerful there is no popular representation, practically no Press, no right of public meeting. The officials who govern the people hold their posts on the Emperor's appointment, and they are removeable at any time if the Emperor is dissatisfied with them or promotes them. There are no elective offices in China; all appointments are from above. On the other hand, among Oriental countries at any rate, there is none more democratic than China. To be successful, to have a good record in Peking, an official must conciliate the people in his charge, and he must also govern so justly as to conciliate Heaven, for any natural calamity that occurs in his jurisdiction is set down to Heaven's dissatisfaction with his rule. But it is most important that he should go conciliate the people under him that there should be no popular outbreaks. Outside the western gate at Kiukiang, prominently in the sight of every official as he nears the wall to enter the city, is a large stone tablet with the legend engraved on it, "It is the duty of the mandarin to keep his people in peace." Part of the difficulty the central government has in making prompt reparation for such outbreaks as have lately occurred against Christians, comes from the unwillingness of the mandarin to own that there has been any outbreak at all in his jurisdiction, lest a black mark be put against his name at Peking. An unnecessary amount of writing has been expended on the recent statement to the Throne by the late acting-Viceroy at Nanking, and Governor of Anhui, Shen Ping-cheng, on his return from Nanking to his proper seat of government Nganking, that everything was quiet in his jurisdiction, when, as a matter of fact, he had just come from the outbreak' at Wuhu. His report, however, was merely a "common form," like the reports that officials make when they have just reached their posts, that they noticed that. the crops promised well everywhere along their route.
We are constantly getting evidence that in China the success of the governor depends on the consent of the governed, or as it has been epigrammatically expressed, "China is an absolutism, tempered' by the right of rebellion." While the people have nothing to say in the appointment of their officials, they can make it so unpleasant for an unpopular official that he will be removed, and instances have been known of their forcibly putting him in his official chair, and carrying him outside the boundary of his jurisdiction. Unpopular exactions are met by strikes, by the traders shutting up their shops until the tax is removed or modified, sometimes by the tax-collectors being mobbed and beaten and their books destroyed while unless he is is a very firm man, the mandarin has too much: regard for his record at Peking to punish any one directly. On the other hand a popular magistrate, which does not necessarily mean a lax administrator, has all kinds of honours paid him by the people—as was the case with the Shanghai magistrate, Mr. Luh, the other day—when his term of office expires; and they will try to prevent his leaving them by kindly-intentioned force, or send a petition to the higher authorities for his re-appointment, so strenuous that it has to be attended to. In a Note which we published yesterday from the Hupao is pat of officials to popular sentiment, an illustration of this yielding on the
is of course generally known that there is no article from whose taxation a revenue is derived that is watched more closely than salt. Quite recently at Weénchow some 90 labourers who were employed at the godown of the salt monopolist were returning to their homes with their wages which had been paid them in kin Their boats were stopped by the salt revenue guard-boat, which confiscated their salt. The mild Chinese will fight to the death for his hard-earned wages, and a fight ensued in which the labourers had two of their number severely wounded, but found they could do nothing against the revenue-men, who were armed. They rushed to the magistrate's yamen, and tore down a partition and the dais on which his worship sits to administer justice. 'I'he magistrate most judiciously found business to occupy him in his private room, but he ordered his runners to explain that he had nothing to. do with the matter, and was powerless, though his will was excellent, to help the aggrieved labourers; they must go to the office of the Salt Gabelle for redress. Here they went and, in the words of our translation, "continued the work of demolition: walls, the inner doors, ser-
accountants room were all smashed up vants' room, tax-collecting office, and and their contents looted. Bags of salt were ripped open and strewn about the grounds. Five servants were badly an expression of their feelings, and they wounded." This demolition il only still demanded the return of their salt, and they were soon reinforced by. another crowd of labourers, who had been treated in the same way. Things were rapidly assuming the appearance of a serious riot, and ina country governed as absolutely as China is in theory, the soldiers would have been called. out, order would have been restored by force,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.