does nothing at first, of having to do all the more at a later date. The people recognise distinctly that the prospective loss of taxes is the motive force in government efforts to mitigate disasters such as the continual outbreaks of irrepressible rivers. What the people do for themselves in endeavouring to prevent calamities of this sort, is due to the instinct of self- preservation, for the people thus make sure that the work is done, and also escape the numberless exactions which are sure to be the invariable concomitants of government energy locally applied.
No more typical example could be selected of the neglect of public affairs by the government, and the absence of public spirit among the people, than the condition of Chinese roads. There are abundant evidences in various parts of the Empire that there once existed great imperial highways connecting many of the most important cities, and that these highways were paved with stone and bordered with trees. The ruins of such roads are found not only in the neighbourhood of Peking, but in such remote regions as Hunan and Szechuen. Vast sums must have been expended on their construction, and it would have been comparatively easy to keep them in repair, but this has been uniformly neglected, so that the ruins of such highways present serious impediments to travel, and the tracks have been abandoned from sheer necessity. It has been supposed that this decay of the great lines of traffic took place during the long period of disturbances before the close of the Ming Dynasty, and at the beginning of the present Manchu line; but making all due allowance for political convulsions, a period of two hundred and fifty years is surely sufficiently long in which to restore the arteries of the Empire. No such restoration has either taken place or been attempted, and the consequence is the state of things with which we are but too familiar.
The attitude of the government is handsomely matched by
