We have perused the joint. memorial of Huai T'a-pu, President of the Board of Rites, and his colleagues, in which they state that a memorial, containing suggestions of reform, presented by one of their subordinates, Wang Chuo, a 3rd class Secretary of the Board of Rites, to be handed to the Throne, is so full of wild suggestions and discourteous phrases that they, the joint memorialists, are compelled to pray that the said delinquent be punished for' his audacity, ete. Now, in our anxiety to learn what is best to improve and" strengthen our country and the betterment of our subjects, we specially decreed that any Board Secretary having suggestions - to make should be permitted to present them to the Throne, through the medium of the high Ministers of the Boards and Courts to which they belonged. Opportunity was freely given to enlighten us and we expected our invitation to be as freely accepted. We forbade any exceptions being made where breaches of etiquette may have occurred, thus blocking the way to a free interchange of ideas. Indeed we consider ourselves quite capable of judging the value or otherwise of any suggestion for reform that is handed to us, and we need not trouble Presidents and Vice-Presidents of Boards to raise up imaginary fears for our ability to think for ourselves, If excuse is made that such and such a memorial is guilty of breach of etiquette or contains narrow-minded and wild suggestions and, therefore, unfit for our eyes, and the memorial is consequently withheld from us, this is not our idea of reform and progress but a return to the foolish and conservative ruts of an old system and a distinct contravention of our previous commands granting liberty to our subjects to memorialise us at any time and on any subject. We therefore command that Huai Ta-pu and his joint memorialists be hereby handed over to the Board of Civil Appointments for the determination of an adequate penalty, and we further insist that, in future,' should any Board Secretary desire to memorialise us on reforms and hands his memorial to the President or Vice-President of his own Board to hand to us the same shall be done at once and the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.