Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/233

Rh the people are ready to starve with hunger, they disperse in order to seek for nourishment; in consequence of which, small gangs of robbers are formed on all sides. Most of them are extirpated in their very infancy; others swell, and are likewise suppressed. And yet in so great a number of such distant provinces, some gang or other may happen to meet with success. In that case they maintain their ground, strengthen their party, form themselves into a military body, march strait up to the capital, and their leader ascends the throne.

From the very nature of things, a bad administration is here immediately punished. The want of subsistence in so populous a country, produces sudden disorders. The reason why the redress of abuses is in other countries attended with such difficulty, is because their effects are not immediately felt; the prince is not informed in so sudden and sensible a manner as in China.

The emperor of China is not taught like our princes, that if he governs ill, he will be less happy in the other life, less potent and less rich in this. He knows that if his government is not good, he will be stript both of empire and life.

As China grows every day more populous notwithstanding the exposing of children, the inhabitants are incessantly employed in tilling the lands for their subsistence. This requires a very extraordinary attention, in the government. It is their perpetual concern that every body should be able to work without any apprehension of being deprived of the fruits of his labour. Consequently this is not so much a civil as a domestic government. Rh