But a bold peasantry, their country's pride
When once destroyed, can never be supplied."
The question now arises, Are all these solemn sayings of Mencius to be regarded as nothing more than mere literary rodomontade, wherewith to beguile an enslaved people? Do the mandarins keep the word of promise to the ear and break it to the hope? Or do the Chinese people enjoy in real life the recognition which should be accorded to them by the terms of the Confucian Canon?
Every one who has lived in China, and has kept his eyes open, must have noticed what a large measure of personal freedom is enjoyed by even the meanest subject of the Son of Heaven. Any Chinaman may travel all over China without asking any one's leave to start, and without having to report himself, or be reported by his innkeeper, at any place at which he may choose to stop. He requires no passport. He may set up any legitimate business at any place. He is not even obliged to be educated, or to follow any particular calling. He is not obliged to serve as a soldier or sailor. There are no sumptuary laws, nor even any municipal laws. Outside the penal code, which has been pronounced by competent Western lawyers to be a very ably constructed instrument of government, there is nothing at all in the way of law, civil law being altogether absent as a state institution. Even the penal code is not too rigidly enforced. So long as a man keeps clear of secret societies and remains a decent and respectable member of his family and of his clan, he has very little to fear from the officials. The old ballad of the husbandman, which has come down to us from a very early date indeed, already hints at some such satisfactory state of things. It runs thus:—
"Work, work,—from the rising sun
Till sunset comes and the day is done
I plough the sod,
And harrow the clod,
And meat and drink both come to me,—
Ah, what care I for the powers that be?"