Here we have already one instance of voluntary self-taxation on the part of the people; what I have yet to show is that all taxation, even though not initiated as in this case by the people, must still receive the stamp of popular approval before being put into force.  On this point I took a good many notes during a fairly long residence in China, leading to conclusions which seem to me irresistible.

Let us suppose that the high authorities of a province have determined, for pressing reasons, to make certain changes in the incidence of taxation, or have called upon their subordinates to devise means for causing larger sums to find their way into the provincial treasury.  The invariable usage, previous to the imposition of a new tax, or change in the old, is for the magistrate concerned to send for the leading merchants whose interests may be involved, or for the headboroughs and village elders, according to the circumstances in each case, and to discuss the proposition in private.  Over an informal entertainment, over tea and pipes, the magistrate pleads the necessities of the case, and the peremptory orders of his superiors; the merchants or village elders, feeling that, as in the case of likin above mentioned, when taxes come they come to stay, resist on principle the new departure by every argument at their control.  The negotiation ends, in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, in a compromise.  In the hundredth instance the people may think it right to give way, or the mandarin may give way, in which case things remain in statu quo, and nothing further is heard of the matter.

There occur cases, however, happily rare, in which neither will give way—­at first.  Then comes the tug of war.  A proclamation is issued, describing the tax, or the change, or whatever it may be, and the people, if their interests are sufficiently involved, prepare to resist.

Combination has been raised in China to the level of a fine art.  Nowhere on earth can be found such perfect cohesion of units against forces which would crush each unit, taken individually, beyond recognition.  Every trade, every calling, even the meanest, has its guild, or association, the members of which are ever ready to protect one another with perfect unanimity, and often great self-sacrifice.  And combination is the weapon with which the people resist, and successfully resist, any attempt on the part of the governing classes to lay upon them loads greater than they can or will bear.  The Chinese are withal an exceptionally law-abiding people, and entertain a deep-seated respect for authority.  But their obedience and their deference have pecuniary limits.

I will now pass from the abstract to the concrete, and draw upon my note-book for illustrations of this theory that the Chinese are a self-taxing and self-governing people.

Under date October 10, 1880, from Chung-king in the province of Ssuch’uan, the following story will be found in the North China Herald, told by a correspondent:—­