Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/40

22 had been the civil governor, but now his duties were altogether financial.

The provincial judge exercised the chief judicial functions of the province, reviewing the decisions of the magistrates' courts. Together with the treasurer, the judge was supposed to be consulted on matters of civil appointment. But the limitation of the right of memorialising the throne brought it about that the viceroy and governor usually decided on all appointments and dismissals and only secured the consent of these two lower officers pro forma. In routine matters they made recommendations to the governor or viceroy. It is perhaps not altogether inappropriate to say that the four formed a provincial council of administration, holding in their hands the entire executive, legislative, judicial, and deliberative power. They composed, in fact, "the government."

The salt controller was found in all the provinces, because the operation of the salt gabelle was universal. His duties were not territorial, but purely fiscal.

In twelve of the provinces a grain intendant had charge of the taxes received in grain and forwarded to Peking. In the other provinces his duties fell to the treasurer.

One other important provincial officer, usually a man of very high rank, was the literary chancellor. He had general charge of educational matters and examinations in the province, being assisted in the M.A. examinations by special examiners sent from Peking to hold them at the provincial capital.

In general we may agree with Parker that each province was a complete satrapy, "in no way dependent upon any other state, except in so far that the poor ones dun the rich ones for the money which the central