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tional government and does not tend to make other nations regard the Imperial Government as a just one. The practice of buying and selling human beings, therefore, ought without any doubt whatever to be forbidden. When the matter is discussed, however, everybody is disturbed by the inconvenience which, it is feared, will result, and unless the subject is thoroughly investigated, it will be impossible to remove men's doubts or establish a principle of action. Inquiry shows that the diffi

culties in the way may be considered under several heads:

1. There is the inconvenience that will result in the households of the princes. The retainers, known as the pao-i, found in the palaces of the princes, have all along been allowed the privileges of competing at the examinations and of holding office, so that they are not to be classed as slaves in the ordinary sense. Besides these there are the hereditary servants, and, except in the case of those reduced to servitude in punishment for crimes, these, too, are not of the same status as those slaves who have been bought and sold. But, if the fundamental laws and the statutes are to be revised, then the servants in the households of the princes must also be taken into consideration. So far as they are concerned, the following statement may be made: The servants in the households of the princes, among whom there are many who have official rank, have never been looked upon as degraded to the condition of ordinary slaves. According to the code of the T'ang Dynasty, the status of such servants was in a general way like that of the underlings of the various Boards. The T'ang code made the killing of a slave a crime less by one degree than that of striking an underling of one of the Boards. A servant of this sort, therefore, was not originally considered to be in the same category as a slave. And now that we are revising the law, the principle to be observed is still the same. By this, however, we do not mean that old precedents are to be literally followed.

2. The inconvenience that will be occasioned in the households of Manchu and Mongol officials: We find upon examination that from the beginning of the present dynasty a half of the household slaves of the Bannermen, leaving aside those who have been bestowed by Imperial favor and those who have surrendered themselves into slavery, have

7

7 Until the recent revision of the code, the penalty for certain grave offenses required that the near relatives of the criminal should be given as slaves to meritorious officials.

8 Although the feudal system of China was abolished 225 B. C., the conquest of the Empire by the present Manchu Dynasty tended to revive it in the northern

been purchased upon written deeds, and therefore there are special statutes among those in force to-day which distinguish between those bought upon "red" (i. e., stamped) deeds and those purchased upon "white" deeds (i. e., not stamped with the official seal). Recently for several decades the custom of presenting slaves to meritorious officials has been discontinued, and for a long time there have been no reports of men surrendering themselves into slavery nor of slaves that have been bought under deeds of sale. The principal reasons for this have been that slaves easily escape and that it is expensive to support them. These two facts discouraged the use of slaves, and the necessary manual labor was mostly performed by hired servants. However, old and well-to-do families formerly bequeathed to their descendants the sons and grandsons of the household slaves, so that there was also no lack of these, who generation after generation were still unable to escape the slave lists. During the Han Dynasty male and female slaves of officials were emancipated and became free subjects, as the history of that period shows, and the Liu Tien records that during the T'ang Dynasty slaves of official families were set free at seventy years of age. The ancient methods of emancipation are all easily examined, and one will discover from such examination that originally there was no such thing as hereditary slavery. Even in the statutes at present in force there is a section which provides that descendants of several generations of faithful slaves may, if they so desire, ransom themselves, and another which permits the emancipation of those who are descendants of successive generations of bondmen. As for the provisions with respect to presenting slaves to meritorious officials there is nothing in them to indicate that the descendants of such slaves were to be held in perpetual bondage. Yet the slaves of this class (i. e., slaves of the bannermen) are descendants of those enslaved one and two centuries ago, unemancipated and unredeemed, inheriting from generations gone the status of slave. Their plight is pitiable indeed! Now that the Imperial Government is showing such great grace to all subjects of the Empire, and since there can never again be a slave register, this class (i. e., slaves of Manchu and Mongol bannermen) cannot be left alone out in the cold, and, if it is not easy provinces where large tracts of land and the peasant proprietors thereon were given to Manchu and Mongol nobles for military services rendered. Other peasant freeholders by a sort of "commendation" surrendered themselves and their lands to such nobles in order to secure protection.

The Six Canons of the T'ang Dynasty.

to order the emancipation of all of them they may at least be uniformly regarded as hired laborers. Thus the relationship of master and servant will be retained. Such an arrangement will not be objectionable to the master and this class of slaves will be permitted to partake of the Imperial bounty which desires to regard all with equal kindness and secure for the slave an equal status with the common people. This reform would be a genuine emancipation.

3. The objections of those who keep female slaves.

The custom of buying male slaves has long since ceased, but, as for female slaves, not only are they maintained by official and wealthy families, both Manchu and Chinese, but among the well-to-do families of the middle class, there are none who do not possess them, the service of female slaves being generally regarded as more satisfactory than that of hired women. Such an old custom is difficult to suppress. If hiring should take the place of purchase and sale, it is feared that servants will refuse to obey orders, or that their relatives and friends, perhaps, will continually visit them and induce them to steal or run away. But do we not know that it is the purchased slave, whom one can not send away, who worries her master by disobedience and who is difficult to control? If a hired woman refuses to obey orders she can be dismissed and another engaged in her stead. There is nothing difficult about this. A slave girl runs away because she is a chattel and can not do as she likes. But if she be a hired woman she can plainly give notice and is not under the necessity of escaping by stealth. Thus we sometimes hear of a slave girl running away, but who ever heard of such a thing in the case of a hired servant? This is clear proof. Naturally among those who possess female slaves the humane treat them indulgently, and, if after a term of years they arrange marriages for them, either as wives or as concubines, they first obtain their consent. In such cases the evil practices associated with the use of male slaves are unknown. But, if the female slave should happen to have a cruel master, she may perhaps be illegally beaten, possibly, beaten to death, or she may lack for food and clothing and suffer from hunger and cold and all manner of ill treatment, a condition inexpressibly pitiful. If, however, the purchase and sale of slaves be changed into a hiring of servants such evils will be greatly reduced and humane government will be realized.

The objections cited above therefore can not be considered as real objections.

Although there is a difference between slaves and hired servants under

the law, there are not a few sentences for crime which are identical for the two classes. Still for such serious offenses as assault and deliberate killing there is considerable difference in the severity of the sentences provided for the servant and the slave respectively. For striking or killing one's master the punishment of the slave is more severe than that of the hired servant. Yet even a hired servant who strikes and kills his employer in a quarrel is sentenced to immediate strangulation, and if it be a case of deliberately planned murder, he is punished by immediate decapitation, the sentence being specially intended to be more severe than in the case of a criminal who is an ordinary subject. Now that we are revising the code and lightening the penalties this distinction ought to be preserved so as to avoid treating such offenses too. leniently. If the case be one in which a master ill treats his servant or his slave, the punishment of the master is more severe when the injured man is a hired servant than when he is a slave. If it be a case in which a male or female slave is deliberately killed by a master the punishment is only one year's banishment, while the killing of a hired servant by his master, even in a quarrel, is punished by banishment for the full term (i. e., three years), and if it be a case of deliberate murder the master is strangled, being condemned to give life for life. Should there be any apprehension on this account (that is fear of having the status of the slave raised to that of servant), do we not realize that the slave is also a human being? Can we tolerate arbitrary destruction of life? We are bound to respect the human being, and still more orght we to honor the right. We dare not simply because it is an old custom class men with brute beasts.

Recently the Imperial Government has published its intention to establish a constitutional regime, and has repeatedly issued Imperial decrees concerning it. No reform, therefore, which is intimately related to constitutional government must be allowed to wait until the last minute. for realization. The buying and selling of human beings was long ago. classed as wrong by western nations. The various statutes in our code referring to male and female slaves are due to the practice of buying and selling human beings. It follows, therefore, that if we do not at an early date forbid the practice, but wait until constitutional government is put into operation, there will be an appearance of incongruity. We, Your Majesty's ministers, after consulting together have concluded to request that the petitions contained in the memorials of the abovementioned Viceroy and Censor may be granted; that is to say,

that the buying and selling of human beings may be prohibited by special edict, and that henceforth no one, whether Manchu or Chinese, official, soldier, or commoner, be permitted to engage in such traffic in human flesh, and that all disobedience to such edict be punished; furthermore that those who have heretofore possessed slaves be allowed merely to hire them as servants, that those who take concubines be permitted to take them only with due formality by the employment of a go-between, and that all persons heretofore considered as slaves, whether male or female, be treated as hired servants, having control of their own bodies; that, if they commit crimes, they be punished according to the provisions of the statutes for servants, which are by no means lenient in their penalties, and that all references in the code to male and female slaves be expunged.

This will proclaim abroad the Imperial benevolence and harmonize with the constitution of the state.

As to the regulations for dealing with the question, we have carefully considered those proposed by Chou Fu, and have drafted ten rules which are respectfully submitted in the accompanying enclosure, and for which we reverently pray the Imperial consideration. This reform, which will sweep away the accumulated abuses of thousands of years, will be a work which the distant past can not match, such as will move the hearts of the whole wide world and excite the attention of the entire globe. We pray that an Imperial edict may be issued making known the glorious tidings, and that every province be required to engrave it and to print it on yellow paper and post it far and wide that every one may have a knowledge of it. Your ministers being engaged at this very moment in the revision of the penal code must make careful examination and expunge, as suggested, all references in the laws and statutes to male and female slaves and amend the code so as to make it applicable to the new condition of affairs.

Your ministers, having examined the memorials referred to them, and having consulted together and taken into consideration all the circumstances of the situation, now, as in duty bound, reverently lay this memorial before Your Majesty.

The above memorial was drafted by the Commission on Constitutional Government and discussed in consultation with the Commission on Revision of the Code. Both commissions have joined in its presentation.

On the 21st day of the twelfth moon of the I year of Hsüant'ung (January 31, 1910) an Imperial rescript was issued as follows: "Let it be as proposed."

"Respect this."

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