Fuom Our OWN ConnesronvexT, Peking, June 22.
In the permanent Constitition China abolished the office of Taoyin, or circuit intendant, and thus, elimi= nated all intermediate territorial offices in the local government of the country between Governor and Magistrate. Now it is announced that the abolition of the Taoyin will come into effect on July 1, Formerly, there were three gra of districts in China's system of local government, hsien, chow, and man ascending scale. Then fame the (ao, and finally the province. With the establishment of the republic, all the districts were converted into haines. Foreigners, however, cling to the designations jw and chow with the same tenacity, they cling to the tid. How many people know that there is really no such place as Yunnanfu, Tsinanfu, for Hangchow; that these names according to the now system of nomenclature are Kunming, Licheng, and Hanghsien. Tao now goes the same way as fir and chow, showing that China fat least—her system of local govefnmont, and dispensing with the complicated machinery that has developed since the Ming dynasty.
The tao dates from the Tang dynasty, (018-906), but in: its modern form is traced to the Ming dynasty (1868-1643). " During the latter part of the Ming dynasty, the country was divided into 13 provine ces, later to develop into the Manchu moild of 18 provinces. Each province used to be administered by one or two pu-chen-thill, who looked after civil and financial affairs, and tu, {twas realized that the provinces were too large. to enable these officials adequately to fulfil their duties from the. provincial capital. Tt was obviously impossible to expect them to maintain. personal touch with each of their districts, There fore, assistants wore appointelf. who were each to look after the affairs of a section of the province which was called tao. 'The sections ctgated by the pu-chenerhih and the ai-cha-shih were not necessarily the same, but were marked out by the' officials without regard for each other's convenience. As, however, their funeid_not convict, thers' was really no need for uniformity.
The Early Tao's, The two's under the aehawhih were called feng-hsu-tao, which thus almost the same meaning as circuit court. The office-holder was called an-cha-feng-shih. There wore 41 "taos in "this system, ancgthey wore arented as carly as thePirst part of the Ming dynasty, The assistants of the puschen-shih administered what, were knowih as foy-shou-tao, or administrative see~ Yions. But the creation of tants did not stop with this division of administration. There wore tu-
Tiany-tao'e for facilitating. the' suprevision of the transportation of tice and sometimes money to Peking. Special circuits wore established in kiangsi and Shensi for the supervision of registration records, Salt {aotais looked after the salt monopoly in certain groups of districts, Fiver taotais took care of river conservancy in certain sections of the country, education "and mail route taotais sprang into existence, and soon. For all special matters concerning sections smaller than a and larger than a fu, a Special taotais was created. In this way China's local bureaucracy was created, each of the officers having. some. territorial significance, "ale. though really actual administration
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.