CHAPTER XXXI.

FINANCIAL AND MERCANTILE OFFENCES.

THE Code is copious as to the duty of officials in regard to the receipt, transfer, and expenditure of the public revenue. A curiously primitive. article provides that taxpayers delivering their contributions in kind may be allowed to measure their own grain, and the officer or collector shall be beaten who "refuses to receive fair measure from the contributing landholder, or insists on shaking the grain into as small compass as possible, or piles the grain into a heap,"1 even though the overplus is duly appropriated to the service of the Government; while a double penalty is exacted if the excess is embezzled. This unique anxiety on the part of the State, lest it should derive too much profit from its subjects, inspires a clause in the chapter dealing with the receipt and issue of public stores.2

"If the superintending officer, purchasing or hiring goods for the public service, does not pay the stipulated sum immediately, or stipulates for more or less than the market price or rate of hire of the goods in each case, the amount of the excess above, or the deficiency below, what was fairly due, shall be estimated, and the offending party shall be proportionately liable to punishment according to the law applicable to the cases of pecuniary malversation in general;"3 and he shall moreover replace to Government, or to the individual sufferer, whatever may have been improperly withheld. The same penalty applies to officers who "receive goods of an inferior quality, when they ought to have been of superior quality."

In England, when military stores prove scandalously unfit, the question, "Whom shall we hang?" is cheerfully debated in the newspapers, with an underlying conviction that at the top of the official scale, where we take the existence of probity for granted, responsibility will be so subdivided that no honourable gentleman need be saddled with more than a bearable fraction of blame; while at the bottom of the commercial scale, it is a case of caveat emptor, and the contractor has a right to cheat the Government if he can; so that nobody need be hung (or even bambooed) after all. We look down on the dishonesty of Chinese officials, and think it discreditable to the nation that there should be so many laws against that offence, yet no one hesitates to use as an argument, against the extension 2 lb., p. 139.

1 Staunton, p. 127.

3 The penalties under this section range from twenty blows to one hundred blows, and three years' banishment.

of Government intervention in any direction, that work done for the State is always more costly than the same work done for private persons - a fact which admits of only two explanations: either that the Government is a more liberal paymaster than private persons, or that it is habitually cheated. The latter hypothesis must be preferred, however reluctantly, since it was, until recently, supposed to be the duty of Government officials to buy goods and labour, not at a fair and uniform market price, but at the lowest rate possible, which, in China, is as unlawful as passing paper boots or pewter bayonets would be. And our economists would regard as a truly barbarous idea the suggestion that the Surveyor of Ordnance, or a Director of military clothing, should make good out of his own pocket the difference between the earnings of operatives employed on Government contract work, and the minimum sanctioned by the corresponding trade union scale. The lowest tender may be too high for economy, or too low for equity; but our officials are not sufficiently well informed as to the market price of all kinds of commodities and labour to be able to judge what the State on each occasion ought to pay, under penalty of making good the excess or defect if they decide wrongly.

In China, on the other hand, it is comparatively easy, even for a scholar, to know what prices are customary; while as to the quality of goods, even Emperors themselves have not disdained to discriminate between good rice and bad. The price of labour does not vary from one season to another; the wages of labourers are not reduced because a bad harvest may have left some cultivators without other resource than their power of working, and so have glutted the labour market; efforts are made to find or make work, but it would be a crime, not a charity, to offer it at less than the normal rate; hence the rate of wages only varies slowly and slightly in the course of half-centuries, as that of the precious metals may do. The prices of commodities have the same stability, and as the customary prices are adjusted to the customary quality, any alteration in the latter has the effect of fraud, and is proscribed by law accordingly. It is this real uniformity of practice which enables the Government to regulate official expenditure, through a somewhat venal bureaucracy, more effectively than is done in England with a higher standard of honesty in the official class.

The last brief division of the Code contains the laws relating to public works; in this, officers are forbidden to undertake any public works without previously receiving full reports (concerning costs and requirements) from their subordinates, and obtaining authority from their superiors to proceed with the undertaking. If they begin to employ labourers, etc., without such authority, they will be punished as for pecuniary malversation, the amount of which will be estimated by counting the number of labourers employed, and the number of days they have been at work, pricing each man's day's work at (nearly) 7d.1 An exception is made in the case of

1 In the case of lawfully employed labour, not more than fifty men from a district may be employed at a time, and no one may be detained more than three days.

urgent necessary reparations; but in the regular course of things, the officer must describe the works which he desires to execute, and estimate their cost; while if he "does not truly state the extent of the labour and quantity of the materials required, he shall be punished with fifty blows," and any loss arising from his miscalculation shall be laid to his charge, rendering him further liable to a penalty for pecuniary malversation up to the amount incurred. Expenditure upon "unnecessary or unserviceable work" is punishable under the same law, the maximum penalty in each case being one hundred blows or three years' banishment. Articles manufactured for the public service must not be contrary to the established rule or custom, under a penalty of forty blows; and if "the deviation is so considerable as to render the manufactured articles totally unserviceable, or to render it necessary to employ additional labour and expense in adapting them for use, the said labour and expense shall be estimated, and the responsible person punished in proportion to the amount, according to the law respecting pecuniary malversation in ordinary cases."

Excessive expenditure, even on harmless or praiseworthy public objects, is thought objectionable, and an author quoted by Amyot observes: "The splendour and wealth of the State is not shown by the magnificence of dykes and sluices, of bridges, canals and public buildings, but by the portliness of the citizens, and the number of children and old people." Large and showy transactions afford a margin for peculation, because the details are less easily controlled, and if China has no public debt, this may be partly owing to the fact that no enterprising war contractors or ambitious ædiles have been suffered to build fortunes out of the supply of her wants. All economical problems are more complicated in Europe than China, but we cannot claim complete superiority for the more complicated machinery, till it has been brought to the same comparative degree of perfection as the older and simpler system to which we prefer it.

The general law against adulteration is headed "Manufactures not equal or comformable to the standard," and is the last of five sections dealing with "Sales and markets." According to it, "If a private individual manufactures any article for sale, which is not as strong, durable, and genuine as it is professed to be, or if he prepares and sells any silks or other stuffs of a thinner or lighter texture and quality, narrower or shorter than the established or customary standard, he shall be punished with. fifty blows."

A "piece of silk" is a known quantity; it has been used when coin was scarce as a medium of exchange, and it is treated as a fixed quantity in the sumptuary law or custom, which limits the number of pieces of silk given as a marriage present to ten on the one hand, and two on the other. There has been no reason, since the days of Chow, why respectable tradesmen should desire to have any alteration made in the dimensions of the web of silk turned out by all the looms of the Flowery Land, and isolated 1 The primitive dimensions of the web were forty feet by two feet two inches.

divergence from the general usage for the purpose of entrapping customers into paying a higher price for an article of unfamiliar size, seemed only slightly less objectionable to the lawgiver than the use of false weights, measures and scales prohibited in the preceding article.

Another section in the same book, concerning "Monopolizers and unfair traders," is worth quoting at length to illustrate the doctrines in restraint of trade, which have always been and still are upheld by the supreme authority in China. "When the parties to the purchase and sale of goods do not amicably agree respecting the terms, if one of them monopolizing, or otherwise using undue influence in the market, obliges the other to allow him an exorbitant profit; or if artful speculators in trade, by entering into a private understanding with the commercial agent, and by employing other unwarrantable contrivances, raise the price of their own goods, although of low value, and depress the prices of those of others, although of high value-in all such cases the offending parties shall be punished with eighty blows for their misconduct. When a trader, observing the nature of the commercial business carrying on by his neighbour, contrives to suit or manage the disposal or appreciation of his own goods in such a manner as to derange or excite distrust against the proceedings of the other, and thereby draws unfairly a greater proportion of profit to himself than usual, he shall be punished with forty blows. The exorbitant profit derived from any one of the foregoing unlawful practices, shall, as far as it exceeds a fair proportion, be esteemed a theft, and the offender punished accordingly, whenever the amount renders the punishment provided by law against theft more severe than that hereby established and provided. The offender, however, shall not be branded as in ordinary cases of theft."1 It is in pursuance of this idea, that exceptional profits must be virtually stolen, that the State, which would be horrified at the proposal to treat the common people as taillable et corvéable à merci, has no scruple in treating its capitalists as squeezable at discretion.

The "commercial agent" referred to in the above law is not exactly a Government official, though he is licensed and appointed by Government. They are elected from among the wealthier inhabitants of the sea and river ports where ships and merchandize are liable to arrive, and it is their duty to keep a register of such ships and cargoes, and of the "marks, numbers, quality and quantity of the goods imported or introduced into the market." These registers are submitted monthly to the district officer, who takes what action thereon may be necessary; but the principal function of these agents, as laid down in the code, was "the valuation and appraisement of goods and merchandize, after due consideration upon fair and equitable terms," partly with a view to the assessment of the customs duty, but partly also as a survival from the regulations in force when private traders were only allowed to dispose of their wares to, or through, agents of the Government. Penalties against the Government agent were enforced if they misrepresented the value of the goods imported, for their own advan

1 Staunton, p. 165.

tage, or took bribes for under-estimating the State dues; while any one threatening to extort fines or forfeitures unjustly, for the sake of obtaining blackmail, became liable to the punishment prescribed for officers of Government who commit wilful injustice in pronouncing judicial sentence. The treaties with European powers which modify or abolish the functions of these officers, are of such comparatively recent date, that the provisions of the code are still more in keeping with the national habits and ideas than the modern system of fixed duties paid to the Imperial Treasury. Of course the services of these agents were not rendered gratuitously, though they received no regular salary from the Government ; but in each district there would be a well-known and authorized scale of fees or commission, which they were entitled to demand along with the Government dues, but which it was equally unlawful to exceed.

The old laws against hoarding copper are retained, in the modified form of a prohibition against the retention in private dwellings of any utensils wholly or chiefly of copper, except mirrors, arms, bells, and articles dedicated to religious purposes; but any copper possessed in excess may be sold to the Government at the rate of about 44d. a lb., or such other price "as the state of the markets and circumstances may authorize." The fact that the estimate has not been raised, though copper now commonly fetches about twice the amount named, would by itself prove that the present dynasty does not attach much importance to the enactment which it allows to remain on the Statute Book.

The code throughout treats the duties of officials as matter of notoriety, and in providing against official misconduct, there is, if anything, more anxiety to protect the people than the Government against any evil consequence that might result from official misconduct. The legislature evidently looks upon corruption and tyranny, or a compound of the two, as the sin which does most easily beset the employees of the State, and all the obvious occasions and manifestations of such tyranny are expressly defined and provided against. Officials are not allowed to buy land, to marry wives, or to lend money within the area of their jurisdiction, and the punishment attached to a simple breach of the rule is increased if force or terrorism has been employed to compel the other party to sell, borrow, or give a wife against his will.

The main provisions of the law against usury have already been described. Any one demanding or receiving interest in excess of the original amount of the principal is liable to punishment, according to the amount extorted, up to one hundred blows, and if the offender is a Government officer, sentence of banishment in perpetuity may be added to the blows. The debtor, on the other hand, who fails to repay principal and interest at the date agreed on, may be punished at the rate of ten blows for every month's delay, up to a 1 The cause of the unpopularity of foreign trade with Chinese district officers is that, under the old system of restricted trade, the customs were received by the local authority, and contributed to the revenue of the district, whereas they now go to Peking.

2 C. ante, vol. i. p. 491.

VOL. II.-P.C.

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