Turre is one feature connected with the government of China, which is very remarkable in a despotism such as that government is, and that is the freedom with which the abuses of the system are displayed from time to time in the Peking Gazette. Sometimes the Emperor himself and sometimes the Censors Inveigh against the corruption that prevails throughout the official world, in terms fully as strong as those that appear from time to time in the press, and no attempt is made to conceal or soften the accusations, when the memorials or decrees are published. Everything that we or our contemporaries have said from time to time or may say about the way in which the public funds are diverted' into the pockets of the mandarins is confirmed by official docuents freely given to the world, and the only difference is, that where the foreign press hints at constant malversations and embezzlement by the manda-ving, the Peking Gazette openly asserts the' practice of these crimes. It has been constantly hinted for instance, that the inundations of the Yellow River are not at all unwelcome to the amny of officials, from Governors down, who are charged with-the conservation of China's Sorrow, as the destructive flood which fills the farmer's fields is the precursor of a grateful flow of silver into the official pockets, which much more than compensates for the tempora ary loss of button and titles inflicted on those who ought to have prevented the breaking of the embankments. When we are accused of condemning a whole large class for the faults of a few corrupt individuals, we can reply by referring to a Memorial on the Abuses connected with the Yellow River Works, published in the Peking Gazette of the 22nd ultimo. It is written by Hsii Chen-yi, the Director-General of the Yellow River, who mentions that some years ago he was Taotai of the Hopei Circuit when a special commission was sent from Peking to investigate the Yellow River question, and he then made suggestions as to needed reforms, " which exposed him to the remonstrances of the entire staff of officials connected with the River." We are to infer that his then position was not exalted enough for his suggestions to be attended to; but as the Emperor has now honoured him with the supreme control of the department, he feels himself in a position to take an entirely independent line of action. He refers to the charge made by a Censor that whenever a Taotai draws Ts. 10,000 from the Treasury for repairs, he only issues Is. 5,000 to the sub-prefects. This charge he declares to be an exaggeration, for all the sub-prefects whom he urged to speak out denied it, but "it may possibly he explained by the fact that the Taotais keep a certain proportion of the money they draw as a reserve firnd for guarding against accidents connected with the River." In fact, the tendency has been of late to abolish perquisites, "and since the occurrence of the breach at Chéngchou, river employment has more than ever gone out of favour." Although the memorialist finds that the Taotais do not now embezzle any of the funds they draw, he recommends—and this is siguificant enough—that in future the subprefects shall draw the sums required for repairs direct from the Treasury, the Taotais having no longer anything to do with the disbursement of the money.
When the memorialist comes to the general management of the River he makes some very notable admissions. "'The ordinary condition of the River can be generally foretold with tolerable certainty from past experience, and if a fixed and consistent policy were pursued in dealing with it, there is no reason why additional funds should be required year after year for its maintenance. People connected with the works consider these sums insufficient, while outsiders regard the whole system as sheer embezzlement. Memorialist deeply ashamed of it, and has long had the intention of introducing some uew arrangement."
We must defer till to-morrow the discussion of the list of abuses which the Director-General finds to t in the River work, and the remedies he proposes. When Wu Ta-cheng was appointed to the post of Director-General, it was said that he was a man of equal intelligence and integrity, and that he light be trusted not to allow the former abuses to continue; but he accepted blindly the accounts furnished him by his subordinates, and when he retired in mourning, he had done nothing to reform or rectify the known abuses. His successor, Mr. Hsii, is evidently an official of different type: he appears to be honest in his desire to remove the reproach that hangs over all the officials connected with the conservation of the river; and if he stops some of the leaks he will deserve well of his goverment and of the empire; for it aust be a source of shame that the mandarins should be enriched by the preventible sufferings of the people, and that foreigners should be asked to contribute to the relief of misery which lines thickly the pockets of the guardians of the poor.
IL oth Nov.
Tue abuses which the present Director-General of the Yellow River finds existing in the management of the River, and the remedies he recommends, fill a considerable portion of his memorial. The first abuse is the existence of what was practically an organised system of robbery, beginning in the Direc-for-General's office and going down to the offices of the prefects. The offices were filled with a crowd of secretaries up their embezzlements they were in the habit of treasuring up as secret documents all the accounts rendered to the Board of Works in Pekivg, and they no doubt found it convenient to keep copies of all these accounts, as a means of controlling their own employers and colleagues in the event of trouble arising. Besides this, it was the duty of those it the Director-General's office to persuade him that catastrophes were impending particular' seotiota of tie tyee and frighteninghim intosanctioning perfectly unnecessary work. Those in the offices of the two Taotais devoted themselves ito extracting as much as they possibly could from the provincial treasury, and ing as little as possible of what they succeeded in getting, to the River authorities, and we gather from this that the earlier statement was not exaggerated, that when the 'Taotais drew 10,000, they kept 'I'ls. 5,000 for themselves. 'I'he secretaries in the Prefects' offices had to do the best they could with the sums which the Taotais spared, and their business was to scamp the work, and keep as much money as they could fur themselves. Ihe Director-General reports that he dismissed these Kuchu promptly, "and did not allow the outery that arose in consequence tu shake his purpose in the least."
The struggle between the Chinese officials and" the Yellow River is a chronic warfare, which occasionally breaks out into actual battle, and we should not perhaps therefore wonder that the abuses which are found during a campaign in Europe are noted by Mr. Hit, We know that in a campaign at home, in spite of the existence of elaborate checks and counterchecks and audits, there is an enormous waste of public wouey and simultaneous enrichment of unscrupulous contractors, and there is the same waste in the supply of material for the fights against the Yellow River. Officers in handing over charge of portions of the work "debit their successors with the cost of materials which have already beengpaid for out of public funds, and the sous and grandsons of deceased officials often draw money for supplies, which were in the first instance furnished at the public expense." Stacks of materials rot unused because they are supposed to be the private property of officials, while they really belong to the public. The whole system, in fact, is a slough of corruption which only uow and then a fearless nan like Hsii has the pluck or energy to stir up. In reference to this last abuse of the disputed ownership of materials, he reports that he has decided upon having an inventory taken of the existing stock, and declaring it all public property on and after the 23rd of last month, The third main abuse that the me-monalist notices is the miscalculation and management that preside over the work. Not only are the materials required not bought at the right time, but the purchasing is so arranged
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.