March 21st.—The Board of Civil Ottice presents a Memorial replying to the complaints of General Feng Tzu-tsai, who alleged that the clerks of the said Board were guilty of extorting gratuities and improperly manipulating the lists of officials recommended for rewards. The Board reports that it has examined into the case: which the General brought forward to prove that distinctions were corruptly made in promotions or honours meted out to different individuals, and it finds that the procedure in each instance was in exact accordance with law. Thus, though extraordinary rewards were approved by the Board of War for the military engaged in the campaigns against the Hakkas and the aborigines in Hainan there is a istinet law in force that civil servants taking part in such expeditions are only eligible for ordinary rewards; and by this rule the Board of Civil Office was obliged to abide in the instance in question. On the other hand, exactly the opposite occurred in the case of the demarcation of the frontier between Kuangtung and Tongking. The first time that recommendations were made for services rendered under such circumstances was only five years ago, the occasion being the delimitation of the frontier of Ili, The High Commissioner Chang-shun then requested that the officers engaged might be rewarded according to the more liberal scale. As there was no precedent by which ts be guided, and the work accomplished was of great moment, affecting the international relations' of the country, the Board therefor made no objection to the proposal. This example was followed in the case of the Kirin frontier and again in that of the Yunnan and Tongking frontier; and so in the present question of the Kuangtun; delimitation, he Board merely continue: what had become the established practice. The Board of War on the other hand, looking at the matter from a military point of view, held that the services rendered by the officers of the army on such occasions could not be compared with actual fighting in war, and therefore that the rewards for ordinary merit were all that could be granted to them.
There were, further, two civil servants for whom it was asked that they might be given promotion and placed on the Kwangtung list. The rank demanded for each' was conceded by the Board, but only one was allowed to be placed on the Kuangtung staff, The reason for this was simple. The officer to whom the favour was refused belonged to the Kuangsi service; and transfer to another province is never given asa form of reward. The other officer was once on the Kuangsi list, but had been dismissed from the service, and therefore belonged to the staff of no province at all. To appoint him to Kuangtung was merely to retain him in the province to which he was temporarily attached. There was thus no discrepancy in the treatment of the two men.
Feng Tzu-tsai had also given the name and address of a clerk belonging to the Board who had written a letter to a certain Prefect using language which amounted to a demand for bribes. On examining the letter, which had been forwarded to them, the Board found that it spoke of "the neces sity of spending money in important places." But there was no clerk on the Tolls of the Board bearing a name such as that given. The Memorialists, however, sent to the place indicated and arrested three men, one of whom had a similar name to that mentioned by Feng Tzu-ts' These men have been handed to the Board of Punishments by whom they will be regulnvly tried, in order that the truth may be elicited.
a postscript Memorial the Board deals with another petition addressed to the Throne by the General, who asks whether his two sons ought to be allowed to receive the honours conferred upon them for services rendered in 1879, when they were only fifteen and fourteen years of age. The honours were for each of them, an Expectant Sub-prefectship on the list for immediate employment, and a peacock's feather decoration, The Memorialists observe that these rewards were bestowed by Tis Majesty in consequence of a recouimendation made by the Governor of Kuangsi, Chang Shu-sheng, who described the two sons as having followed their father across the frontier and having borne a very distinguished part in the destruction of a rear chief. Atthe time the Board reflected how extremely rare a thing it was, that mere youths should conquer the enemy and effect an important capture. But not having been eyewitnesses of what occurred, the Memorialists could not deny the possibility of the story, much as they thought it improbable. Therefore, as the recommendation had been made by the Governor concerned and approved by the Emperor, they filled up the necessary forms and forwarded them to Kuangsi in 1880 without comment.—Decree issued previously.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.