Village Socialism, automatic, self-ruling, and a central government on top only to
collect taxes and render justice? "The heaven is high and the Emperor is far
away/* It was even so always. Replace the word "guild" with the word "village,"
and there you have the most advanced type of Socialism you want. But that, too,
I give up? for aeroplanes are making Village Socialism impossible, and the family solidarity and the village solidarity have been broken up. I cannot accept
democracy in the sense of parliamentarism, for I know full well that a Chinese
M.P. is not an M,P.; he cannot be if he is a Chinese, for an M.P. in China is an
"official," too, in the most pathetic sense of the word, and we have too many of
them, so why bother to elect them at the cost of five thousand dollars a ticket, for
which we will eventually have to pay?
Nor can I accept, for that matter, any ism, for I have seen how foreign isms, even
the most fast-dyed and fadeless kind, lose colour in a Chinese laundry, and give
off only a stinking laundry steam odour. Nor can I accept another revolution, for
I have heard the familiar boom of guns and the racket of fusillades, and they
have ceased to scare me now, for the boom of guns soon ceased and the racket
that sounded like a fusillade seemed more and more like firecracke rs in the next
street, and I learned that it was only Mr. Yang celebrating his assumption of a
new post. Nor can I accept Moral Upliftism, for I have had enough of it and it
has ceased to amuse me. This nation of moral uplifters, with their eternal pagan
sermonizing for two thousand years, has not yet rescued itself from rampant
official corruption and heartless oppression of the people. Besides, the moral
uplifter, as I have pointed out, is a selfish man, not only because he wants to
uplift other people's morality but because he is avoiding going to jail himself. He
would have to go to jail if he stopped preaching moral uplift and began talking a
government by law. The moral uplifter erects a pailou in honour of other moral
uplifte rs after their death, if they turn out to be gentlemen, but inevitably fails to
send other moral uplifte rs to prison if they turn out, as most of them do, to be
thieves. And what he does not do unto others he does not want done unto himself.
Therein lie the gaiety and pleasantness of Moral Upliftism.
Meanwhile the country must live; it cannot be allowed to sink lower and lower
under foreign domination. A temporary national extinction, even \vith eventual
restoration to independence, is cold comfort and no real consolation. The people
are being bled white and rendered homeless, aad a ruthless, artificial process of
moral and the Chinese countryside is going on at a gallop. Some way out must be
found* If this great and fine people, with their indomitable industry and good
humour, who only want peace and security, could only be let alone, free from the
grip of the octopus Militarism, they would know how to save themselves. But
who would free them from the octopus? Who would bell the cat? I asked myself
this and turned back in despair. . . . At last I thought of the Great Executioner,
and the moment I saw him in my vision I knew he would save China. Here comes
the Saviour, he with the great sword that would only obey Dame Justice's
command, and that no one else could pull out of its place without her bidding,
the sword that was drowned in a lake centuries ago. That lake where so many of
the officials* heads should peacefully lie in, but where the sword is sunk now.
The Great Executioner comes, and pulls that sword out of the deep, and he is
preceded by drum-boys in blue uniform. Dum桪 um桪 um! the procession comes, and the trumpeters in yellow uniform proclaim the rule of the law. Dum桪 um桪
um! the procession comes from the country, approaching the town and down the
main streets, and at the distant rumble of the drums and the sight of the banner,
with Dame Justice sitting in state, and the Great Executioner with the gleaming
sword by her side, the people cheer, but the mayor and the town councillors run
away higgledy-piggledy and hide themselves. For behold, here the Saviour comes!
The Great Executioner nails the banner of Justice on the city wall, and makes
every one of them bow before it as they pass. And a notice is posted all over the
city that whosoever says he is above the law and refuses to bow before the banner
will be beheaded and his head will be thrown into the lake where the sword was
sunk for so many hundreds of years. And he goes into the city temple and throws
out their goddesses, whose names are Face, Fate and Favour, and converts it into
a House of Justice. To this place he herds together the priests and councillors
who ruled the city under their goddesses* names, and with the great sword he
chops off their heads and commands that they be thrown, together with their
goddesses, into the lake. For Face, Fate and Favour have plotted against Justice,
and she hates them with the jealousy of a woman. And of those whose heads the
Great Executioner chops off great is the number, many of them from
distinguished families, and the lake is dyed red with their blood of iniquity. And,
strange to say, in three days the relatives of the distinguished families who have
robbed and betrayed the people behave like noble gentlemen, and the people are
at last let alone to live in peace and security and the city prospers.
So, in my mind, I pictured the Saviour of China. I would believe in a revolution,
any revolution, and in a party, any party, that would replace the present
government by Face, Fate and Favour by a gove rnment by law. These three have
made the rule of Justice and the weeding out of official corruption Impossible.
The only reason why official corruption remains is that we have never shot the
officials, not one of them. We couldn't so long as these three goddesses still
remain. The only way to deal with corruption in the officials is just to shoot them.
The matter is really as simple as that. And democracy is an easy thing when we
can impeach an official for breaking the law with a chance of winning the case.
The people do not have to be trained for democracy, they will fall into it. When
the officials are democratic enough to appear before a law court and answer an
impeachment, the people can be made democratic enough overnight to impeach
them. Take off from the people the incubus of official privilege and corruption
and the people of China will take care of themselves. For greater than all the
other virtues is the virtue of Justice, and this is what China wants. This is my
faith and this is my conviction, won from long and weary thoughts.
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