The mass of people show their democratic tendencies in many ways, some of them conservative and others disorganizing. They form themselves into clans, guilds, societies, professions, and communities, all of which assist them in maintaining their rights, and give a power to public opinion it would not otherwise possess. Legally, every subject is allowed access to the magistrates, secured protection from oppression, and can appeal to the higher courts, but these privileges are of little avail if he is poor or unknown. He is too deeply imbued with fear and too ignorant of his rights to think of organized resistance; his mental independence has been destroyed, his search after truth paralyzed, his enterprise checked, and his whole efforts directed into two channels, viz., labor for bread and study for office. The people of a village, for instance, will not be quietly robbed of the fruits of their industry; but every individual in it may suffer multiplied insults, oppressions, and cruelties, without thinking of combining with his fellows to resist. Property is held by a tolerably secure tenure, but almost every other right and privilege is shamefully trampled on.
Although there is nominally no deliberative or advisatory body in the Chinese government, and nothing really analogous to a congress, parliament, or tiers état, still necessity and law compel the Emperor to consult and advise with the heads of tribunals. There are two imperial councils, which are the organs of communication between the head and the body politic; these are the Cabinet, or Imperial Chancery, and the Council of State; both of them partake of a deliberative character, but the first has the least power. Subordinate to these two councils are the administrative parts of the supreme government, consisting of the six Boards, the Colonial Office, Censorate, Courts of Representation and Appeal, and the Imperial Academy; making in all thirteen principal departments, each of which will require a short description. It need hardly be added that there is nothing like an elective body in any part of the system; such a feature would be almost as incongruous to a Chinese as the election of a father by his family.
THE NUI KOH, OR CABINET.
1. The Nui Koh, or Cabinet, sometimes called the Grand Secretariat, consists of four ta hioh-sz’, or principal, and two hiehpan ta hioh-sz’, or ‘joint assistant chancellors,’ half of them Manchus and half Chinese. Their duties, according to the Imperial Statutes, are to “deliberate on the government of the Empire, proclaim abroad the imperial pleasure, regulate the canons of state, together with the whole administration of the great balance of power, thus aiding the Emperor in directing the affairs of state.” Subordinate to these six chancellors are six grades of officers, amounting in all to upward of two hundred persons, of whom more than half are Manchus. Under the six Chancellors are ten assistants, called hioh-sz’, ‘learned scholars;’ some of the sixteen are constantly absent in the provinces or colonies, when their places are supplied by substitutes. What in other countries is performed by one person as prime minister, is in China performed by the four chancellors, of whom the first in the list is usually considered to be the premier, though perhaps the most influential man and the real leader of government holds another station.
The most prominent daily business of the Cabinet is to receive imperial edicts and rescripts, present memorials, lay before his Majesty the affairs of the Empire, procure his instructions thereon, and forward them to the appropriate office to be copied and promulgated. In order to expedite business in court, it is the custom, after the ministers have read and formed an opinion upon each document, to fasten a slip of paper at the foot—or more than one if elective answers are to be given—and thus present the document to his Majesty, in the presence-chamber, who, with a stroke of his pencil on the answer he chooses, decides its fate. The papers, having been examined and arranged, are submitted to the sovereign at daylight on the following morning; one of the six Manchu hioh-sz’ first reads each document and hands it over to one of the four Chinese hioh-sz’, who inscribes the answer dictated by the sovereign, or hands it to him to perform that duty with the vermilion pencil. By this arrangement a large amount of business can be summarily despatched; but it is also evident that much depends upon the manner in which the answer written upon the slip is drawn up, as to the reception or rejection of the paper, though care has been taken in this particular by requiring that codicils be prepared showing the reasons for each answer. The appointment, removal, and degradation of all officers throughout his vast dominions, orders respecting the apportionment or remittal of the revenue and taxes, disposition of the army, regulation of the nomadic tribes—in short, all concerns, from the highest appointments and changes down to petty police cases of crime, are in this way brought to the notice and action of the Emperor.
Besides these daily duties there are additional functions devolving upon the members of the Cabinet, who are likewise all attached to other bureaus, such as presiding on all state occasions and sacrifices, coronations, reception of embassies, etc.; these duties are fulfilled by the ten assistant hioh-sz’, who are all vice-presidents of the Board of Rites. They are the keepers of the twenty-five seals of government, each of which is of a different form and used for different and special purposes, according to the custom of orientals, who place so much dependence upon the seal for vouching for the authenticity of a document.[230] Attached to the Cabinet are ten subordinate offices, one of which is for translating documents into the various languages found in the Empire. The higher members of the Cabinet are familiarly called koh lao, i.e., elders of the council-room, from which the word colao, often met with in old books upon China, is derived.[231]
THE KIUN-KÍ, OR GENERAL COUNCIL.
2. The Kiun-kí Chu, Council of State or General Council, was organized about 1730, but has now become the most influential body in the government; and, though quite unlike in its construction, corresponds to the ministry of western nations, more than does any other branch of the Chinese system. It can be composed of any grandees, as princes of the blood, chancellors, presidents and vice-presidents of the Six Boards, and chief officers of all the other metropolitan courts. They are selected at the Emperor’s pleasure, and unitedly called “great ministers directing the machinery of the army”—the army being here taken to signify the nation. Its duties are “to write imperial edicts and decisions, and determine such things as are of importance to the army and nation, in order to aid the sovereign in regulating the machinery of affairs.” The number of members of the General Council probably varies according to his Majesty’s pleasure, for no list of them is given in the Red Book; but latterly their number has been four, two of each nationality, and Prince Kung as the president. This body is one of the mainsprings of the government, and its composition shows the tendency of the national councils and polity.
The members of the General Council assemble daily in the Forbidden Palace, between five and six in the morning; when summoned by his Majesty into the council-chamber they sit upon mats or low cushions, no person being permitted to sit on chairs in the real or supposed presence of the Emperor. His Majesty’s commands being written down by them, are, if public, transmitted to the Inner Council to be promulgated; but on any matter requiring secrecy or expedition, a despatch is forthwith made up and sent under cover to the Board of War, to be forwarded. In all important consultations or trials this Council, either alone or in connection with the appropriate court, is called in; and in time of war it is formed into a committee of ways and means. Lists of officers entitled to promotion are kept by it, and the names of proper persons to supply vacancies furnished the Emperor. Many of the residents in the colonies are members of the Council, and communicate directly with his Majesty through it, and receive allowances and gifts with great formality from the throne—a device of statecraft designed to maintain an awe of the imperial character and name as much as possible among the mixed races under them.