Page:A Pocket Guide to China (1943).pdf/36



CHINA'S modern government is not the same in its form as ours, but Chinese are a democratically inclined people. The present government is a new one and war overtook it before its form was completed. But even in the old days when China had an emperor, who lived in Peking, he governed very loosely. He was not so much a ruler as a spiritual head, as the Pope is to the Catholic church, or, for that matter, as the present King in England is to the English people. The provinces, or states, were headed by his representatives, but the real governing was done by the people, village by village. The State did not even prosecute criminals. If a man was convicted of a crime, he was returned to his clan village and it sat in judgment on him.

The magistrates and viceroys of provinces were chosen from among the men who passed state examinations. These examinations were open to anybody. Men from the poorest families, if they had the ability and education, could enter for them. Thus, even the officials of old China often came from humble beginnings.

In 1911 the old regime was overthrown by Sun Yat-sen, who believed that China must modernize herself in order to live in a modern world. Perhaps the ability to change 31