VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN CHINA, 1933
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crimes or disturbances in the village. Williams believes that this system of mutual and integrated responsibility does tend to check serious offenses, but he adds that if a general sentiment opposes a government regulation the probability is that neighbors would shield rather than expose one another.1
IV
There are two sides to the relations between the village and the government. The relations of the government toward the village have been discussed; what of the attitude of the village toward the government? The characteristic attitude is one of avoidance. It is hard to say what has been responsible for this vigorous shunning of any actual contact with the central government. The phenomenon may have arisen only during the corrupt last century of the Manchu dynasty, and notice of this by Westerners may be the only basis of the opinion. For the general impression one receives of the Chinese government throughout its history is certainly not of tyranny and ruthless oppression, even if the economic history of the people shows their condition frequently to have been wretched. It is true that rebellions were common and often started among the people themselves, but this cannot be considered as the normal relationship between the two.
The immediate causes for the avoidance of government by the people during the Ch'ing dynasty (which is the only period we can safely discuss) may have been the generally corrupt nature of the Hsien government. Whether the magistrate were good or evil did not necessarily affect the government which the people felt. Their relations were almost entirely with a group of professional underlings, "rats under the altar", as they are called, who were fixed to the Yamen irrespective of the triannual change of magistrate. These individuals seem to have been grasping and corrupt to the extreme,
1 Williams, Edward T.; China Yesterday and Today, p. 122.
2 A statement with regard to the corruption of the Ch'ing government, while it seems perfectly safe, needs to be made with caution considering that most of our information comes from two highly prejudiced sources. Most foreigners writing at the time were eager to have extraterritoriality enforced by their government, and naturally sought to paint a black picture of conditions. Secondly, most of the Chinese who have written in Western languages of conditions at that time are spokesmen of the Republic, and take every opportunity to stress the evils of the Ch'ing dynasty.