VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN CHINA, 1933
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judged according to the intrinsic moral value which it has, measured by the supposedly-known natural law. Government measures are therefore obeyed, in so far as they correspond with this popular sense of rightness, not merely because it is positive law.
A partial explanation of the situation may also be found in the philosophy of Taoism, which stresses an indifference to government. Several factors make this hypothesis seem correct. Taoism is strongest in rural districts; in fact, it arose out of the conditions of rural life. Its doctrines, moreover, apply to the life of the village more than do those of Confucianism, which better fit the urban and ruling classes. One of the central doctrines of Taoism is Wu Wei (§) “inaction”, and one of its precepts is that the best government is no government. But such a force is entirely unmeasurable, and the hypothesis can only be advanced for what it is worth.2
Times occur, it is true, when Hsien government becomes intolerable to the people. In such cases, the first impulse with the Chinese villager is not, as with us, to elect representatives to go as a delegation to make complaint. Rather, the whole village is liable to rise up to a man, armed with what weapons and implements are at hand, and to descend upon the Yamen to demand redress. Demonstrations of this sort are quite embarrassing to the magistrate, for if wind is gotten of them by his superiors, he is liable to be heavily punished. This direct method of self-assertion on the part of the people is therefore often quite effective.
These two attitudes, on the one hand a positive avoidance, and on the other a profound indifference to the central government, are basic in the relations of the people toward any government greater than their own village polity. And it is these two attitudes, inherited from the Ch'ing dynasty, which will be among the chief obstacles to any form of democratic and representative government which the Republic may attempt to establish.
V
As a conclusion to this chapter, it seems appropriate to outline the most recent developments in rural government under the Republic, and to indicate something of what the future may bring.
1 Duyvendak, J. J. L.; The Book of Lord Shang, p. 129-130.
2 For this idea, the writer is indebted to Dr. D. W. Lyon, in a conversation on Dec. 12, 1932.