CHECKS PLACED UPON OFFICE-HOLDERS.
The preceding chapter contains a general view of the plan upon which the central and provincial governments of the Empire are constructed; and if an examination of the conduct of officers in every department shows their extortion, cruelty, and venality, it will not, in the opinion of the liberal-minded reader, detract from the general excellence of the theory of the government, and the sagacity exhibited in the system of checks designed to restrain the various parts from interfering with the well-being of the whole. In addition to the division of power and the restrictions upon Chinese officers already mentioned, there are other means adopted in their location and alternation to prevent combination and resistance against the head of the state. One of them is the law forbidding a man to hold any civil office in his native province, which, besides stopping all intrigue where it would best succeed, has the further effect of congregating aspirants for office at Peking, where they come in hope of obtaining some post, or of succeeding in the examination for the highest literary degrees. The central government could not contrive a better plan for bringing all the ambitious and talented men in the country under its observation before appointing them to clerkships in the capital, or scattering them in the provinces.
Moreover, no officer is allowed to marry in the jurisdiction under his control, nor own land in it, nor have a son, brother, or near relative holding office under him; and he is seldom continued in the same station or province for more than three or four years. Manchus and Chinese are mingled together in high stations, and obligations are imposed on certain grandees to inform the Emperor of each other’s acts. Members of the imperial clan are required to attend the meetings of the Boards at the capital, and observe and report what they deem amiss or of interest to the Emperor and his council; while in all the upper departments of the general and provincial governments, a system of espionage is carried out, detrimental to all principles of honorable fidelity, such as we look for in officials, but not without some good effects in a weak despotism like China. There is, besides this constant surveillance, a triennial catalogue made out of the merits and demerits of all officers in the Empire, which is submitted to imperial inspection by the Board of Civil Office. In order to collect the details for this catalogue, it is incumbent upon every provincial officer to report upon the character and qualifications of those under him, and the list, when made out, is forwarded by the governor to the capital. The points of character are arranged under six different heads, viz.: those who are not diligent, the inefficient, the superficial, the untalented, superannuated, and diseased. According to the opinion given in this report, officers are elevated or degraded so many steps in the scale of merit, like school-boys in a class, and whenever they issue an edict are required to state how many steps they have been advanced or degraded, and how many times recorded. Officers are required to accuse themselves, when guilty of crime, either in their own conduct or that of their subordinates, and request punishment. The results of this peculiar and patriarchal mode of teaching officers their duty will be best exhibited by quoting from a rescript of Taukwang’s, issued in February, 1837, after one of the catalogues had been submitted to his Majesty.
“The cabinet minister Changling has strenuously exerted himself during a long lapse of years; he has reached the eightieth year of his age, yet his energies are still in full force. His colleagues Pwan Shí-ngăn and Muchangah, as well as the assistant cabinet minister Wang Ting, have invariably displayed diligence and attention, and have not failed in yielding us assistance. Tang Kin-chau, president of the Board of Office, has knowledge and attainments of a respectable and sterling character, and has shown himself public-spirited and intelligent in the performance of special duties assigned to him. Shí Chí-yen, president of the Board of Punishments, retains his usual strength and energies, and in the performance of his judicial duties has displayed perspicacity and circumspection. The assistant cabinet minister and governor of Chihlí province, Kíshen, transacts the affairs of his government with faithfulness, and the military force under his control is well disciplined. Husungé, the governor of Shensí and Kansuh provinces, is cautious and prudent, and performs his duties with careful exactness. Ílípu, governor of Yunnan and Kweichau, is well versed in the affairs of his frontier government, and has fully succeeded in preserving it free from disturbance. Linking, who is entrusted with the general charge of the rivers in Kiangnan, has not failed in his care of the embankments, and has preserved the surrounding districts from all disquietude. To show our favor unto all these, let the Board of Office determine on appropriate marks of distinction for them.
“Kweisan, subordinate minister of the Cabinet, is hasty and deficient, both in precision and capacity; he is incapable of moving and acting for himself; let him take an inferior station, and receive an appointment in the second class of the guards. Yihtsih, vice-president of the Board of Works for Mukden, possesses but ordinary talents, and is incompetent to the duties of his present office; let him also take an inferior station, and be appointed to a place in the first class of guards. Narkingé, the governor-general of Hukwang, though having under him the whole civil and military bodies of two provinces, has yet been unable, these many days, to seize a few beggarly impish vagabonds: after having in the first instance failed in prevention, he has followed up that failure by idleness and remissness, and has fully proved himself inefficient. Let him take the lower station of governor in Hunan, and within one year let him, by the apprehension of Lan Ching-tsun, show that he is aroused to greater exertions.
“Let all our other servants retain their present appointments. Among them Tau Shu, the governor of Kiangnan and Kiangsí, is bold and determined in the transaction of affairs, but has not yet attained enlarged views in regard to the salt department; Chung Tsiang, the governor of Fuhkien and Chehkiang, finds his energies failing; Tăng Ting-ching, the governor of Kwangtung and Kwangsí, possesses barely an adequate degree of talent and knowledge; and Shin Kí-hien, though faithful and earnest in the performance of his duties, has, in common with these others, been not very long in office.
“That all ministers will act with purity and devotedness of purpose, with public spirit and diligence, is our most fervent hope. A special edict.”[240]
The effect of such confessions and examination of character is to restrain the commission of outrageous acts of oppression; it is still further enforced by the privilege, common alike to censors and private subjects, of complaining to the Emperor of misdeeds done to them by persons in authority. Fear for their own security has suggested this multiplicity of checks, but the Emperor and his ministry have no doubt thereby impeded the efficiency of their subordinates, and compelled them to attend so much to their own standing that they care far less than they otherwise would for the prosperity of the people.
CHARACTER OF CHINESE OFFICIALS.
The position of an officer in the Chinese government can hardly be ascertained from the enumeration of his duties, nor can we easily appreciate, from a general account of the system, his temptations to oppress inferiors and deceive superiors. His duties, as indicated in the code, are so minute, and often so contradictory, as to make it impossible to fulfil them strictly; it is found, accordingly, that few or none have ascended the slippery heights of promotion without frequent relapses. Degradation, when to a step or two and temporary, carries with it of course no moral taint in a country where the award for bribery is graduated to the amount received, without any reference to moral violation; where the bamboo is the standard of punishment as well for error in judgment or remissness as for crime—only commuted to a fine in honor of official rank; where, as a distinction in favor of the imperial race, the bamboo is softened to the whip and banishment mitigated to the pillory.[241] The highest officers have of course the greatest opportunity to oppress, but their extortions are limited by the venality and mendacity of the agents they are compelled to employ. Inferiors also can carry on a system of exactions if they keep on the right side of those above them. The whole class form a body of men mutually jealous of each other’s advance, where every incumbent endeavors to supplant his associate; they all agree in regarding the people as the source of their profits, the sponge which all must squeeze, but differ in the degree to which they should carry on the same plan with each other. Although sprung from the mass of the people, the welfare of the community has little place in their thoughts. Their life is spent in ambitious efforts to rise upon the fall of others, though they do not lose all sense of character or become reckless of the means of advance, for this would destroy their chance of success. The game they play with each other and their imperial master is, however, a harmless one compared with what was done in old Rome or in Europe four or five centuries ago, or even lately among the pashas and viziers of the sultans and shahs in Western Asia. To the honor of the Chinese, life is seldom sacrificed for political crime or envious emulation; no officer dreads a bowstring or a poisoned cup from his lord paramount, nor is he on the watch against the dagger of an assassin hired by a vindictive competitor. Whatever heights of favor or depths of umbrage he may experience, the servant of the Emperor of China need not, in unproved cases of delinquency, fear for his life; but he not unfrequently takes it himself from conscious guilt and dread of just punishment.