The Hsien in a Democracy.
The hsien, or district, was one of the most important social institutions in old China. The lowest official, the hsien Magistrate, represented the Empire to the people of the hsien, while within the villages or the hsien the people enjoyed a very high degree of autonomy. The hsien was the meeting point of the political system and the extra-legal government, generally of a very vaguely organized nature, by which the Chinese managed their own affairs in accord with tradition. An estimate of the position of the hsien may be gleaned from the fact that China has approximately four hundred eighty million inhabitants; apart from the cities and towns, there are about half a million villages; and the whole country, with the exception of certain Special Municipalities, such as Shanghai, is divided into nineteen hundred and forty-three hsien.[289]
The hsien, however significant they may be in the social system of China, both past and present, cannot be described in a work such as this. It is not inappropriate, however, to reiterate that they form what is perhaps the most important grouping within China, and that much of [pg 232] Chinese life is centred in hsien affairs. It is by reason of hsien autonomy that the Chinese social system has been so elastic as to permit the shocks of invasion, insurrection, conquest, famine and flood to pass through and over China without disrupting Chinese social organization.
Sun once quoted the old Chinese proverb about the Lu Shan (mountains): “We cannot find the real shape of the Lu Shan—for we ourselves are on it.” From the viewpoint of the Western reader this proverb could be turned against Sun in his treatment of the hsien. He was passionately emphatic in discussing the importance of the hsien with his foreign friends;[290] in his writings, addressed to his countrymen, he, as they, simply assumed the importance of the hsien without troubling to make any cardinal point of it.
The hsien is in the unit of the most direct self-government of the people, without the interference of any elaborate set-up from officialdom. Apart from its age-old importance, it will gain further significance in the democracy of Sun Yat-sen.
Some of the functions to be assigned to the people in a hsien are assessment, registration, taxation, and/or purchase of all lands in the hsien; the collection of all unearned increment on lands within the hsien; land profits to be subjected to collection by the hsien, and disbursement for public improvements, charitable work, or other public service. Add this to the fact that the hsien have been the chief agencies for police, health, charity, religious activity and the regulative control of custom—sometimes with the assistance of persons—through the centuries, and the great importance of the hsien in the nationalist democracy becomes more clear.