MAKING CHINA’S WHEELS GO ROUND

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1508, 24 January 1901, Page 66

MAKING CHINA’S WHEELS GO ROUND

ALL ABOUT THE MACHXE WHICH TURNS THEM. China’s wheels are going round very fast just now, but very feiv people, in or out of China, understand the machinery which drives them. Soon the Govern - ment of China, may cease to be, and ne,w wheels ivill run in the old grooves. But the old grooves will still be there-—nlu.st be there. No other system could hold together this mighty empire and its mysterious millions. The chain of Government reaches, by countless unbreakable links, from the Emperor at Pekin to the meanest man with a pigtail in China. The Emperor is all powerful—that is, in ordinary circumstances; for we are now, of course, dealing with China as she is when her wheels are not out of order. He holds the keys of life and death. Ye!t, in the Chinese Constitution, there is a limit even, to the absolute power of an Emperor; who is only tolerated by the sovereign will of the people so long as be rules uprightly and behaves to his people/ like a father. A. father, in the eiyes of the Chinese, he is—the father of a family of four hundred millions, responsible for their good conduct and safety. If the affairs of the familv are in good ordelt it is because of his excellent household management; if they are- not, he had better look round to see ivhat screw is loose. For all loose screws he is responsible, and it is when his rule: ceases to be just and beneficent that his people may cease to obey. But such a contingency rarely arises. For practical purposes the Sovereign is absolute. Hei may dismiss ei ery official in the Empire; may kill and keep alive whom he will. Yet, though he has not a Parliament, he has his Cabinet Council and his Imperial Boards. True, they ard appointed by himself and responsible to himself, and any member may lose his head to please the Emperor’s whim. But they are an important part of the Chinese Machine, and their Yamens make ut> together the Chinese Whitehall and the Chinese Downing Street. They meet regularly, some of them daily, with as much solemnity as if the fate of a world hung upon their decisions. Yet they make no attempt at secrecy. A crowd of underlings hang lazily about, lying on the long couches which go round the rooms, it is only when a daring American Minister now and again objects to their presence l that they are ordered to leave. In this way the Chinese Foreign Ministers, of whom there are nearly a dozen, meet daily at the Tsung-li-Yamen to discuss the affairs of Europe. Before the Tsung-li-Yamen—which me.ans office of general superintendence —was established, the Chinese treated Europe as a sort of annexe/ of Mongolia, and even when Sir Claude Macdonald, the British Minister, went to Pekin, the Tsung-li-Yamen thought- him of such Third-rate importance that only two or

told them that he would call again, and thev did not forget the lesson. There was" a. “full house’’ the next time). What goes on in the little wooden shanties the Imperial Boards call tiieir “varoens,” or offices, is a mystery to Englishmen. The Boards are the highest authorities in China, next to the Grand Council, which comes between them and the Emperor. The Board of Hit os itself by seeing that the Emperor uas

sufficient ceremonies to attend to, an--, it is not the Board's fault it no has no. some rite to perform for every hour o his life. The Board of Revenue ieceives as much of toe Imperial revenue as is not pocketed by the official--, x. ie Board of Punishment sees that fit nnd proper tortures are meted out to fit ei ei\ crime, and other boards—the Board oi Office, the Board of Works, ana Hie Board of Music—attend to their respective duties with the automatic regularity of a clock. And. though last not least, is the Board of Censors, which ha, the extraordinary privilege of and criticising everything under .he stu , from the Emperor’s private character and public works to the length of a coouef, pigtail. Morning uy morning, at daybreak, the Grand Council conveys the documents and decisions of the Imperial Boards to the Presence Chamber of uie- Emperoi. To each document is attached slip ot red paper, on which is written the view of the Board from ivhich it comes, and on the margin of this slip the Sovereign makes a little spot with a small brush. This spot signifies that the document has the approval of the Sovereign, and carries with it all the force of law. In the absence of this spot the whole matter falls to the ground.

China has many uncrowned kings. Each of the eighteen provinces into which it is split up. is a little kingdom to itse.r, with a Viceroy ruling over all. More than one of thebe Viceroys wields almost unlimited power over more people than there are in the whole of the_ Biitish Isles. And to these! men is left the ©fntire control of the provincial “wheels. They appoint their own armies and navies, raise them own revenue, administer theii own justice, and have power over the lives of millions, feo long as their annual tribute goes to Pekin, they may do practically as they please, knowing that they are held responsible for the peace and prosperity of their provinces. As the Empire is split up into provinces, so the provinces are split up into circuits, the circuits into prefectur the prefectures into sub-prefectures, and these again into districts aver winch the magistrate rules. There a - e five men below the Viceroy whose utuciity extends over the whole province—governor, treasurer, iud«e, salt commissioner and grain collector ; and all of the sn. 1 . ler divisions have their neads and their hosts of petty officials. Nowhere, perhaps, are there so many wheels within wheels as m this strange country; nowhere, perhaps is the responsibility for driving them distriubted over so many officials. Yet any one. of these wheels may be stopped in a moment by a spot on the red slip, made with the Emperor’s brush at Pdkm. But the wheels rarely stop spinning. Emperors come and go, but the Machine goes on. The man at the wheel to-day mav be) headless to-morrow, or may be ordered by Imperial Edict to rid himself of mortal cares by despatching himselr into the Unknown; but the wheel goes round. And go round it must; nothn g else but this slow broadening down of power, from the Throne at Pekin to the meanest district magistrate, ®an hold to o'either these four hundred millions of Chinaraen. Taxes may be stolen, fraud may be rife, murder may go unavenged, But every petty official who helps to turn the wheels of China aids the Son of Heaven, seated in splendour at I ekin, and woe be to him who offeinds the_bon of Heaven! —“Cassell’s Saturday Journal.”