V. THE NATIONAL GROUP

(Evils which afflict society through the misuse of the governing power)

The dignity of the State, and the perils of power.

Government is a fundamental and universal necessity to the prosperity and efficiency of the social organism. In its rudimentary as well as its more perfected forms it has been an inevitable feature of associate life through all history. No one form of government, patriarchal, tribal, monarchical, oligarchical, or even constitutional, can claim exclusive excellence or pose as the only possible system which can secure the common welfare. Good or bad rule does not depend so much on the form as on the spirit and method with which government is conducted. Any system may be abused or become the instrument of tyranny, although it is no doubt true that an immensely preponderating danger in this respect attends all forms of personal as distinguished from constitutional authority, since the balancing restraint of recognized responsibility is far more imperfectly realized in the exercise of personal than of constitutional power. The great and legitimate function of government is to secure and conserve the rights of subjects, while ministering to the good order, prosperity, liberty, and higher welfare of society. It has upon occasion the further duty of protecting its authority and its geographical domain from aggression, that it may preserve its title to independent existence. The State has a right to be as an essential condition of social order and safety. It is in reality the necessary outgrowth of the family, and as the family is divine in its origin, so the State is both established and sanctioned by God as the enlargement of family life. It is the evolution of primitive patriarchal and family relationships. In this sense "the powers that be are ordained of God" for the benefit of the larger life of man. The history of the world, however, shows what fearful misuse has been made of the governing power. The record of what the world has suffered from bad government is indeed a dark and melancholy chapter in human annals.2 The good of the people has been often heedlessly

1 "The original State was a family. Historically the State of to-day may be regarded as in an important sense only an enlarged family: State is family writ large."-Woodrow Wilson, "The State," p. 3.

2 On misgovernment under the Roman emperors, especially Diocletian, see extract from Lactantius, in "Selections from Early Writers," by Henry Melville Gwatkin, p. 151.

forgotten or purposely ignored, while the arbitrary will or personal ambition of the sovereign has become the guiding impulse of government. The fact that the common welfare puts under certain restraints not only the personal desires and projects of the individual subject, but also the will of the ruler, has been a principle all too frequently ignored by those possessing despotic power. In most instances the rulers of heathen history of all ranks and grades have looked upon government as simply a process of self-aggrandizement and exaltation at the expense of those who were subject to their authority. The most prominent conception of sovereignty in action which has occupied the minds and controlled the policy of rulers in the past history of the world, and which still prevails in non-Christian lands, is that it is the most available method for wresting from others the rights and liberties to which they are entitled by every law of justice and honesty. The temptations of power are almost resistless, and in illustration of this we need not travel far from even a civilized environment. If we are to believe much of what is reported in the colonial history of civilized governments, not to speak of the contemporary annals of Spanish rule or of European administration in the Congo Free State under Belgian rule or of German administration in certain sections of Africa, we have still available, even at the present moment, striking examples of how easily men of European lineage can yield themselves to the gross and cruel misuse of official authority.

The history of heathenism is, as a rule, marked by despotism. The old Oriental empires and their modern successors are alike in this respect. Savage life has been almost invariably characterized by tyranny on the part of rulers. The non-Christian world at the present day is still to a great extent in the toils of irresponsible power. In some sections there has been great and promising improvement within even a half-century, as, for example, in India, Japan, and the European colonies and protectorates established in various parts of the world. In this connection, however, as we have intimated, some large reservations are no doubt necessary, but they are happily the exception rather than the rule. Under this general group we shall present a few specifications.

1. CIVIL TYRANNY.-The different phases of misgovernment are often so allied in principle and practice that it is difficult to deal with the subject under specific headings without the appearance of overlapping and repeating. This is, in fact, just what happens in the executive policy of despotic rulers, who usually improve every opportunity

for misusing their power, with no scruples as to method. Some apparent confusion is therefore likely to be incidental to any attempt to expose the complex and intermingled phases of their misrule. By civil tyranny we refer more especially to the arbitrary use of power in trampling upon civil rights and reducing a citizen and subject to the position of a tool and a slave. It is illustrated in making the will of the ruler to be law, and the personal and civil rights of the subject to be non-existent whenever it suits the purpose of the governing power to ignore or violate them. This principle of despotism may be found not only in the ways of kings and superior officials, but in the methods of underlings and petty officers, in some instances with exceptional severity.

Civil tyranny in
Turkey.

The position of the helpless subjects, or rather victims, of some of the Oriental governments at the present hour would be pronounced absolutely intolerable if there were any remedy available. The attention of the world just now is fixed upon the status in the Turkish Empire under the rule of pashadom. This has been for ages little else than organized brigandage in the name of government. Political rule there is simply martial law under the guise of government in the hands of a ruling caste, whose object is not to protect and defend civil rights, but rather to use positions of authority for purposes of selfaggrandizement, at the expense, when necessary, of every principle of liberty, justice, and law.1 Now and then the slow, inconspicuous, grinding movement of the machinery of misrule loses its self-restraint, and begins to throb with passion and whirl with the propulsion of some unusual excitement, which results either in a massacre or in some extraordinary expedient of wholesale and peremptory blackmail. Just at present there is an acute and virulent outbreak of the passions of misrule, but the spirit which has now come to blows and deeds of blood and cruelty has all along been revealing its tendencies, until maladministration may be said to be the chronic curse of Turkey. A few words from a resident missionary of the empire, written before the recent massacres, reveal the existence of potential extermination as a political programme before the policy was actually put into execution.2 Pub

1 In the index to Dwight's "Turkish Life in War Times," under the heading "Administrative Anomalies," is given a suggestive list of the eccentricities of Otto

man maladministration.

2 "It would be out of place at the present time and in my position to enter upon a tirade against the powers that be, civil and religious, but I may remark in passing that there is much under the well-gilded surface which, if thoroughly exposed,

lic opinion and the influence of the native press are entirely inoperative, being wholly subservient to the fierce power of despotic authority. A volume might be written upon this one subject of Turkish misrule. Would that some Dante of contemporary literature might present it in its realistic hideousness! although we fear no touch of art could sufficiently relieve the revolting ghastliness of this hell upon earth to save the reader from a shuddering misery in its perusal. Persia is perhaps less desperately bad than Turkey; yet the government of the shahs is despotic, and in the case of non-Moslems is often guilty of gross injustice. All Central Asia knows only the methods of tyranny.

Methods of extortion in China.

In China the entire government is conducted on the principle that authority and power include the opportunity of mulcting the people; and not only the people, but even inferior officials, in accordance with the theory of responsibility which prevails there, are often the scapegoats and victims of higher officials whenever occasion admits. Extortion is the rule. Every one in power searches for his victims, and the higher the official the larger must be his ill-gotten gains. It is customary not only to arraign the guilty party, but to count his relatives, his neighbors, and even his village, responsible for his misdoings. This simply enlarges the area for prosecuting, and practically destroys the principle of personal responsibility. Not only is extortion one of the manifest results of this system, but it affords an almost unlimited opportunity for the indefinite imprisonment of both the innocent and the guilty without any attempt to discriminate between them. It sometimes happens that prisoners are kept for years

would surprise and shock the common sense and decency of the world. The wildest dreams of a Malthus or a Machiavelli are commonplace in comparison with the schemes which have been calmly contemplated and discussed by different classes of the inhabitants of this land, for the purpose of reducing the numbers of those who do not fall in with the requirements of their own systems. How far these schemes have been, or are likely to be, carried into effect, is a question which may properly be referred to history for a reply."-Rev. Edward Riggs (A. B. C. F. M.), Marsovan, Turkey.

Cf. also English Blue Book, Turkey, No. 3, 1896, entitled "Correspondence Relating to the Asiatic Provinces of Turkey, 1892-93"; "The Armenian Crisis in Turkey," by Frederick Davis Greene, chap. iii., on "The Chronic Condition of Armenia and Kurdistan "; " Report of the London Conference, 1888," vol. i., pp. 23– 27, Address of the Rev. G. E. Post, M.D.; "Transcaucasia and Ararat," by James Bryce, fourth ed., with supplementary chapter on Armenia.

1 Browne, "A Year amongst the Persians," pp. 107, 108.

2 Williams, "The Middle Kingdom," vol. i., pp. 474-482.

3 Ibid., p. 480.

4 Smith, "Chinese Characteristics," p. 235.

Douglas, "Society in China," pp. 88-91.

in painful confinement without any effort at trial. "The most common complaint of the Chinese," writes Dr. Graves in "Forty Years in China," "except, perhaps, the ever-present cry of hard times so common in every land, is the injustice of the Courts. They have no confidence either in the integrity of their mandarins or the possibility of obtaining justice at their hands" (p. 104). Is it strange that revolution is a frequent incident in China? The Government becomes so intolerable that a change must be secured at any cost.

As regards Korea, its Government has been pronounced by a native Korean to be "a combination of a despotic monarchy and a corrupted oligarchy, with the worst elements of both. The

sole design and purpose of the whole machinery is Civil administration in to promote the interest of the fewest possible at Korea and Japan. the cost of the nation. Most stringent measures have been adopted to impoverish the mind, enslave the spirit, repress the ambition, and discourage the progress of the people, for no other reason than to enable a few to enjoy power and wealth.”1 The testimony of a resident missionary confirms this verdict.2 In Japan the old order, which was characterized by grievous defects,3 has been superseded by immense changes in the direction of civilization and reform, yet no nation, however receptive and aspiring, can hope to reverse at once the traditions and customs of ages. While the civiliza

1 The Messenger (Shanghai), November, 1894, p. 162.

2 "Korea has known nothing but civil oppression for years. There has not been even a show of justice. A custom which has grown in the last quarter-century will illustrate this. Suppose a dissolute or rascally member of a family having wealthy connections contracts debts, his whole family (even distant connections) are held responsible for the payment of the same. An official desiring to extort money will (possibly by conspiracy with the rascal) loan money to one who thereupon absconds or loses the money in fraudulent investments. Then the process of securing this money from the man's relatives is begun, and these are all compelled to pay to the official whatever he may demand. Failure to do so subjects them to imprisonment, torture, or death. I knew a case where a distant kinsman by marriage, who had never seen his fraudulent relative, and had never had any business relations with him, was thus compelled to help to pay his debts. The officials and all their underlings (of whom there are ten or one hundred times as many as there is need for) live by plunder. In this city last winter a lad in the country was reported to have found a treasure in a field. On the basis of this rumor he was arrested by the underlings of an official here, and tortured in the hope of making him surrender the reported treasure. He was beaten so cruelly that death resulted. The officials and underlings are simply a band of conspirators ruling in order to rob the people. To fall into the clutches of the law on a true or false charge means release only upon payment of money."-Rev. S. A. Moffett (P. B. F. M. N.), Pyeng Yang, Korea. 3 Griffis, "The Religions of Japan," pp. 359-363.