154
C. MARTIN WILBUR
to be influenced only by bribery. They did much to contribute to the evil name which Hsien government has enjoyed. There were other factors which contributed to poor government during the Ch'ing dynasty specifically. The breakdown of the examination system through corruption during much of the nineteenth century; the law which made an official a stranger in his district, often not understanding the problems of the people, and at times not even their local dialect; and the impermanency of office which led to an attempt to make as much money as possible against lean years — all these worked for corruption.
Besides an attitude of avoidance on the part of the people, there has generally also been an indifference to the central government. Several factors may account for this. In the first place, for the mass of the people the real, day-by-day government was in the village. In case of flagrant law-breaking the government stepped in. Otherwise, only when it was very bad, or when taxes were excessive, did it become real. And on the whole the government was careful not to stir the people to acts of collective resentment. On the positive side, the great mass of the people, the peasantry, had no voice in political matters, even when these concerned their own district. When it is remembered how indifferent is the majority of the population in "democratic" countries about anything beyond purely local issues, this attitude on the part of the Chinese peasantry does not seem so strange.
This indifference can be illustrated by a comparison between the attitude toward law as it obtains in the West and in China. In America, for example, there seems to be an increasing dependence upon government to regulate the details of living; and morality often seems to be reduced to the mere observance of codified law. In China, on the contrary, the typical attitude seems to have been, from ancient times, that the law of the state was meant to apply only to those members of society to whom moral law could make no appeal, and who must, therefore, be subjected to force.1 The School of Law (群家), with an attitude toward law which is thoroughly Western, has been repudiated in China since the Han dynasty.
It is not understood that a thing may be right or wrong, merely because it is allowed or forbidden by government; everything is
1 Hummel, Arthur W.; "The Case Against Force in Chinese Philosophy", p. 344.