HOW CHINA IS GOVERNED.*

THE recent marriage of the young Emperor of China has invested the subject of how China is governed with new interest. The new reign may be considered to have fairly begun under auspicious circumstances. Were the attempt to explain the inner mechanism of Chinese government made for the benefit of French readers, it would suffice to enlist their attention to say that the system of administration related to several hundred millions of people, and that it had existed for several thousand years. But the ear of English readers must be gained by more worldly considerations, such as our increasing commercial intercourse with China, the newlyestablished contact between the Chinese and ourselves on the extensive frontiers of the Indian Empire, and the larger place assigned by public opinion generally to China in the affairs of the world. Both theoretically and practically there is much reason to justify inquiry as to how the task of government is carried on in the great country of the Far East on strictly Oriental principles. China, we must remember, owes nothing to the West in her political constitution, although her vigour and vitality are unlike anything that Asia elsewhere has produced. The system of administration is quite original, and has been devised by native wit and ingenuity to meet Chinese requirements, and to stand successfully the one unimpeachable test of time. Whether we accept the modern scientific view that Chinese government only acquired its present form after Confucius, or about 2,300 years ago, or cling to the older belief that Chinese life had reached an advanced stage of civilisation before the Assyrian and Egyptian monarchies were in their prime, there remains an ample margin of time to show that the Chinese government is not merely the oldest existing administration in the world, but that at the least it was contemporary with, and at the same time totally independent of, the systems of Greece and Rome, upon which European culture and freedom are equally modelled. If it has stood triumphantly the test of time, it has also met the requirements of the Chinese themselves so admirably that change of dynasty and even of dominant race has produced little or no alteration in the form of government. China has been conquered by the rude barbarians of the desert and the mountain, by the Mongol and the Manchu, but each and all have adopted the Chinese system and the Confucian ethics as they found them, and proclaimed them to be, by imitation, the sincerest form of flattery, super-excellent and incapable of improvement. Such qualities of endurance command attention, and if they do not excite envy, they certainly stimulate curiosity to see the secret springs that have kept ancient machinery from becoming useless, and that have made the Chinese system not unsuitable to even modern exigencies.

I am indebted to the Proprietors of the Times for permission to reproduce this article, which appeared in that paper on September 27th and 30th, 1889.

The subject covers so wide a field, and includes so many various departments, executive, judicial, and political, that for the sake of clearness each division must be separately considered. The most important branches of the question fall under such heads as the Emperor, the central and provincial administrations, the recruiting of the public services, the dispensation of justice, including the police, the revenue and expenditure of the Empire, and, lastly, the army and navy.

It is singular, but true, that the most important personage in the Chinese Constitution-the man on whose will and superior judgment everything is supposed to turn as on a pivot-the Emperor, who is popularly described as "the father and mother of his people," has been a cipher for more than twenty-seven years, with one brief and unimportant interval. Since the death of the Emperor Hienfung, at the end of 1861, China has been governed by a Regency, with the exception of Tungche's brief tenure of power in 1873-4, and it has only just passed again under the personal rule of its autocrat, the youthful Emperor Kwangsu. The great energy and ability shown by the two Empresses, widows of Hienfung, of whom one still survives, rendered it less a matter of regret that the chief personage in the executive system should so long remain unrepresented, but we cannot doubt that the assumption of ruling power by Kwangsu, followed by his marriage, has satisfied many popular and national aspirations which no female Regency could meet, and revived all the traditional majesty of the occupant of the Dragon Throne. The description of the Emperor's power and duties is therefore made at a moment when the topic is suggested by passing events, and when it again possesses practical importance from the cessation of the Regency and the beginning of Kwangsu's personal reign.

The powers of a Chinese Emperor, as defined by the great jurists and constitutional authorities of the country, are, with the addition of some high-flown verbiage about a Celestial origin and a sway over the bodies of all men, such as the Pope claimed over their souls, precisely the same as those awarded to the Christian Sovereigns of Europe who ruled and still rule by "right divine." They, not less than an Emperor of China, are the dispensers of honour and the supreme centre of justice, they have the vested right in the services of the whole of the able-bodied population, and nominally the freehold of the State is theirs. This is the case in China where, instead of Parliaments and papers, the will of the ruler is checked by the accepted code of Confucius, which lays down the proper conduct for Sovereign as well as for subject, and by the vigilant and unsparing criticism. of the Board of Censors, who are always comparing the acts of to-day with the precedents of the past, and who apparently need little excuse to set their pointed pens in motion. The check on a Chinese Emperor is, therefore, the very effectual one of an educated public opinion, with perfect freedom to give expression to its disapprobation and to offer advice. This brake on the impetuosity or malignity of a man intrusted with irresponsible power was not invented yesterday, and we consequently find very few cases in the long annals of China of a Chinese Emperor's whim bringing sudden calamity on any large section of his people. The bad Emperor's cruelty or bloodthirstiness was always limited in its operation to the Palace. The people generally never suffered from the personal excesses of the Emperor. Their calamities arose indirectly from misgovernment and bad policy, which entailed scarcity, insecurity, and invasion.

The power of the Emperor of China is not in any practical sense greater

than that of the Czar or the Sultan. Its remarkable feature is that it finds expression in the most emphatic and commanding terms, and that the people of all classes are so instilled with the duty of obedience that the behests of the ruler are at once carried out with what may be truly termed unflinching devotion. The Emperor's order, written or signed with the vermilion pencil, is useful for the necessary purposes of government as facilitating the despatch of business, and, indeed, were there not some form of compulsion-the natural right of the tyrant-in every country, whether it be our own subpoenas and mandamuses or the Chinese Emperor's writ, there would soon be an end to order and to law. The idea that the Emperor of China wielded a power upon which there was no constitutional check was probably derived from the style employed in Imperial edicts and rescripts wherein the Chinese ruler is generally designated "the Son of Heaven," and where special mention is always made of his representing the Celestial will. At the same time he exercises, even with the limitations that have been referred to, an arbitrary power not inferior to that of any absolute ruler in any civilised or semi-civilised State and it can well be imagined that when the Emperor happens to be possessed of a strong will, and more than ordinary intelligence, he is able to impress his character and wishes on the Board of Censors and the whole of the Hanlin College. Of such rulers China has not possessed one for over one hundred years, since the death of the great Emperor Keen Lung.

There is certainly no other country in the world where such pains have been taken to convert the respect and loyalty shown to a Sovereign into the national worship of an office identified with the sway of the King of Heaven on earth, acting through his vicegerent at Pekin. These efforts have not been made in any recent time, and the originator of the whole pageantry of Chinese royalty, including both the intricate Court ceremonial and the numerous forms of obedience expressing the humiliation of the subject before the Imperial office, is forgotten in an antiquity that cannot be fathomed. Such changes as have been made in 2,000 years have been introduced imperceptibly, and the Court officials can always, and as a matter of fact do, quote precedents of centuries ago for deciding trifling points of procedure, and for the proper celebration of important events. Woe unto them if the precedent is not applicable, and some lynx-eyed Censor is sure to discover the mistake if slip there be. A case happened only this year in connexion with the marriage of the young Emperor. The Board of Ceremonies fixed the second day before the marriage for the worship of Heaven and Earth, whereas it should have been the first day, or that immediately before the august ceremony. The blunder was discovered, and by the ex-Empress Regent herself, and the delinquents, including two Senior Secretaries, were deprived of five steps of rank! One was still more unfortunate. Li-Hung-Tsao, although a near relative of the great Li-HungChang, was cashiered.

In order to emphasise the wide gulf which separates sovereign and peeple, many articles are specially associated with the former, and, therefore, forbidden to the latter, as, for instance, the colour yellow, which is exclusively the Imperial emblem. The kotow, or form of worship, is rendered not merely to the person of the Sovereign in Pekin, but to every form in which he delegates his authority to others. It is well known that the Imperial edict is always received with the nine prostrations and the burning of incense. But it is not so generally understood that an official of

even superior rank has to perform the kotow on meeting another official who has recently quitted the Imperial presence. Similar obeisances are paid during the week containing his birthday to the Emperor in the Imperial Temple to be found in every provincial capital. The fact that the Emperor's proper name is never mentioned, and that to pronounce it is a criminal offence, shows how exclusive the dynastic policy of the Chinese has always been. On ascending the throne the ruler takes what is called a kwoh hao, and by that name he becomes known to his people and to history. The present Emperor's real or personal name is Tsai-tien, but on being placed on the throne in 1875 he was given the style of Kwangsu, by which he will continue to be known. As Kwangsu means "illustrious succession," it will be seen that these titles are selected with some regard to the circumstances of the accession of the particular Prince to the throne, and with a strong wish to propitiate the unseen powers.

So much depends in the future on the character and capacity of the Emperor Kwangsu that much ingenuity will be displayed to obtain details, correct or misleading, as to his habits and opinions, and upon them will be built up many theories and suggestions of change, indicating, according to the bent of the writer, progress or retrogression. The absolute truth it is hopeless to expect with regard to the mental capacity of an Emperor of China, even at the present day—so little has that country altered in all the essentials of constitutional procedure and etiquette-but from the glimpses that reach the outer and profane world it does seem that the youth who dwells in the inner recesses of the Palace of Plenty and Peace has a marked individuality, and that, if he has the physical strength, he possesses the brains to assert himself in the administration of his dominions. If rumour is favourable to the intelligence of Kwangsu, it is certainly the reverse of being so to his health and strength. He is described as a puny youth, with an exceedingly large head and a melancholy countenance, combining an exceptional acquaintance, for his years, with the Chinese. classics, with extreme ignorance of the outside world, and showing in all his acts and sayings that his education has been conducted in accordance with the old ideas of his race and country, and not with what we Europeans are disposed to consider their new and essential requirements. If the Imperial family at Pekin had been imbued with the idea that China's true or inevitable policy is to associate herself more closely with the West, and to approximate towards the standard of European civilisation and progress, it cannot be doubted that Kwangsu's education would have been of a different character from what it has been. It would have resembled more closely that given to the Princes of India during the last thirty years, with the special object of enabling them to understand the merits of modern culture, and of government based on justice and the interests of the people.

With regard to the new and all-powerful element introduced into Chinese life, both as regards its internal affairs and its external policy, by the Emperor's assumption of power, we have no better ground for anticipating that Kwangsu will be on the side of rational conduct and progress, than his youth and a certain infantile curiosity and anxiety to see novelties, which has already cost his staid guardians some trouble, may afford. The youth of Kwangsu-he is only just eighteen-is in itself not an unfavourable fact, for he ascends the throne at an impressionable age, and his opinions, we may hope, will be matured by his own personal observations.

An event is approaching that must have the effect of quickening his imagination on the subject of the outside nations, and that may afford some indication of his own personal feelings. The accession to power, followed by his marriage, of the Chinese Emperor has immediate and important consequences for all the Treaty Powers. It brings on the tapis the great audience question, which formed such a bone of contention at the time of the war of 1859-61, and which, with the exception of Tungche's brief reign, has lain dormant through all the years of the Regency. As there is the clear precedent of 1873, there is no reason to anticipate any serious difficulty on the part of the Chinese Executive in according the same privilege of personal reception by the Emperor in the present year. The important part of the subject is that Kwangsu will then be brought face to face with those representatives of foreign countries of which he may have heard much, but of which he certainly knows very little. Whether the fact is agreeable or not to the high powers at Pekin, there is no escaping from the conclusion that the affairs of China are now indissolubly interwoven with those of her civilised neighbours and all the great trading nations of the world. It will make much for the harmonious settlement of these relations if the Emperor Kwangsu is impressed by the facts that cannot be concealed from him when he is invited by his own officials to appoint the day for receiving the Ministers of the Foreign Powers.

There is a still more pressing and not less important point than Kwangsu's attitude towards the Powers about which considerable uncertainty must be felt, and that is his future relations with his father, Prince Chun. Prince Chun has only become known to Europeans generally since the final disgrace of his brother, Prince Kung, in 1884; but he has taken an active part in affairs ever since the death of his brother, Emperor Hienfung, in 1861, and the selection of his own son to ascend the vacant throne in 1875 was an unequivocal testimony to his tact and influence. The advancement of his son entailed his own retirement, for by Chinese law a father cannot serve under his own son; but in 1880 Prince Chun thought it so far safe and necessary to emerge from his obscurity as to accept the command of the Pekin field force, which comprises what may be called the Household Troops of China. In 1884 he came still more prominently forward in connexion with the circumstances that led to the deposition of Prince Kung, and there is no doubt that he was mainly instrumental in bringing about the fall of his brother. He showed no hesitation in accepting the post of President of the Grand Council, which is the most important office in China, and there is no question that during the last five years his influence has been the dominant one in Chinese affairs rather than that of the Empress Regent. Even during the twelve months which have elapsed since Kwangsu nominally took over the reins of government, Prince Chun's prominent place in the administration has remained undisturbed. Much curiosity will be felt as to whether Prince Chun can maintain his position permanently, and also as to how the sticklers for Confucian law and etiquette will regard with any tolerance so flagrant a breach of them as a father serving under his son in the highest places in the realm.

There is no evidence to show what are the feelings between the Emperor Kwangsu and Prince Chun, and it may be only due to malevolence that a report has been spread to the effect that they are the reverse of cordial, and that the young Sovereign has already shown signs of chafing at the