Page:Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society - Volume 1.djvu/81

Rh alighting from my carriage, amongst you, to draw out a list of the important things I would have attended to; and publish them by way of proclamation, commanding all the government officers, clerks, country gentlemen, soldiers, and poor people, as one body, to yield implicit obedience thereto. Oppose not! A Special (Edict, or) Proclamation."

1. A supply of water is fundamental to the existence of the people. In agriculture, water to irrigate the fields is, to the husbandman, as the arteries and veins of the life-giving fluid. Canton is near to hills and mountains, and the land is dry; so that ten days want of rain raises the complaint of drought. (The Foo-yuen then states what efforts he employed, when he was a magistrate at Nan-keung district, to promote a supply of water).

2. Plant trees: of all nature's gifts there is none more important, than the growth of trees, which neither require to be clothed with your garments, nor to eat your rice.

3. Breed domestic animals.

4. Encourage charity and compassion: nature cannot, eqaulise benefits, and give a complete competence to all, but relies on those, who have the ability to compassionate the poor; and they shall be abundantly rewarded, in their children and grand-children.

5. Honor economy: Canton is a luxurious extravagant province; and of all the districts, Kwang-chow and Chaou-chow are the most so. The vice begins with the retired literati, and passes to the country gentlemen; from them to the rich merchants; and down to the common people, and petty writers and lictors. They desire to have gay shining dwellings; their wives and children adorned with gold and jewels; their food and drink from the seas, and the mountains; their garments to be silks and crapes; their ancestors' halls must, in violation of their proper sphere, have vermillion beams, and doors and pillars—forgetting that Heaven's curse will come on those who affect an enjoyment which does not belong to their place; whereas, in the affluent, charity to the poor, and rescuing the distressed, bring a blessing on posterity for hundreds of years. Besides, the Emperor, who is supreme, and whose riches embrace all the world, encompassed by the four seas, himself sets you an example, &c.