FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[65]See p.98.[66]Society in China, p.107.[67]Kuei chia shih shih yang yen i ta kuan ssŭ wei lo shih.[68]Ta-jên.The termTa Lao-yeh(see p.15) is more correct for a "father-and-mother" official, butTa-jênimplies higher rank, and the Chinese finding from experience that nearly all European officials are foolish enough to prefer the loftier form of address, wisely make use of it in addressing a foreigner whom they desire to propitiate.[69]Ta-jên tuan shih ju shên.[70]See p.2.[71]See below, pp.264seq.

[65]See p.98.

[66]Society in China, p.107.

[67]Kuei chia shih shih yang yen i ta kuan ssŭ wei lo shih.

[68]Ta-jên.The termTa Lao-yeh(see p.15) is more correct for a "father-and-mother" official, butTa-jênimplies higher rank, and the Chinese finding from experience that nearly all European officials are foolish enough to prefer the loftier form of address, wisely make use of it in addressing a foreigner whom they desire to propitiate.

[69]Ta-jên tuan shih ju shên.

[70]See p.2.

[71]See below, pp.264seq.

To enter into a detailed description of Chinese village life would take us far astray from the immediate purpose of this book, which is to place before the reader a picture of Weihaiwei and the manners and customs of its people. Many such manners and customs are indeed common to the whole Empire, and in describing them we describe China; others are, or may be, peculiar to eastern Shantung or to the districts in proximity to the Promontory. Indeed, the student of sociological conditions in various parts of Asia will perhaps observe how much there is in common, with respect to village organisation, between the people of Weihaiwei and those—for example—of many parts of the Indian Empire. Far apart as the races concerned are in origin, traditions, and geographical and climatic conditions, it is yet a fact that the village communities of Weihaiwei at the present day are, in some important respects, identical in structure with those of Burma, especially of Upper Burma as it was before the annexation to the British Empire.

In outward appearance, it must be confessed, a Weihaiwei village is a poor thing compared with a village on the banks of the Irrawaddy. At close quarters it is often offensive both to the eye and to the nostrils—for the peasantry of China are not a cleanly people. Seen from a distance, the village thatgives the greatest pleasure to a European observer is the village that is almost entirely hidden in a grove of trees. Not infrequently the villages have an almost north-country English appearance. The houses are built of roughly-hewn grey stone, of which there is abundance in the hills; the roofs are usually of thatch, though the temples and some of the better-class dwelling-houses are roofed with bluish-grey tiles. All buildings—even temples—have very plain exteriors, and were evidently constructed for use and not for outward show. There are no pagodas, and not much, except a few twisted gables, that reminds one of southern China. Apart from an occasional Chinese inscription cut on a block of stone (such as "May a lucky star look down on us") or a crude representation of the well-known figure of theYinandYang(according to Chinese philosophy the complementary forces and qualities of nature),[72]there is little to suggest Oriental surroundings. In the larger villages may be seen theatrical pavilions in front of some of the local temples, and these pavilions are often the most elaborate buildings, as regards architectural structure and ornament, in their respective neighbourhoods.

"WE ARE THREE" (see p.250).

VILLAGE OF T'ANG HO-HSI (see p.128).

The Weihaiwei Territory contains, as already stated, about three hundred and fifteen villages and hamlets. Estimating the total area of the Territory at three hundred square miles, and allowing for a large hill-area of uncultivated barren land, we find that there are probably about three villages, on an average, to every two square miles of territory. No census has yet been taken, but the population was long ago estimated by the military authorities (when they surveyed the territory) at 500 to the square mile, which would give a total of close on 150,000. I am inclined to think this estimate was too high at the time it was made, though the present population, which has been steadily increasing during the last decade, may not be far from that figure. Continuing this rough estimate, it may be said that the North Division[73]of the Territory contains 100 square miles with 84 villages, and a population of 50,000; the South Division 200 square miles with 231 villages and a population of 100,000. There are no walled towns or villages with the exception of the so-called city of Weihaiwei, which is nominally under Chinese jurisdiction. There are six market centres, all of which are situated in the South Division with the exception of the first named: they are Weihaiwei city, Fêng-lin, Ku-shan-hou, Ch'iao-Lou, Ts'ao-miao-tzŭ and Yang-t'ing. Market is held at each of these places on every fifth day.

All these markets are of old standing with the exception of that of Ku-shan-hou, which was established, or rather revived, in 1907. The most important of the markets are those at Weihaiwei, Ch'iao-t'ou, and Yang-t'ing. The merchandise sold includes all kinds of agricultural produce in addition to material for clothing, cooking utensils, and other household gear. Foreign cloth and fancy goods of a cheap kind have a small sale. Beasts of burden are bought and sold as occasion demands, but it is at the great annual fairs that they change hands in largest numbers. These fairs were originally held in connection with religious festivals, and, indeed, they are still semi-religious in character. Men and women, especially the latter, flock to the temples, which at other seasons are rarely visited, and burn incense before the image of their favourite saint or deity; religious processions are held—a great source of delight to the children, who are given an opportunity of "dressing up"; and thousands of fire-crackers are exploded in the temple courtyards. But it is the business aspect of the fairs that appeals most strongly to the male adults who attend them, for it is on these occasions that they hope to drive the best bargains in the buying and selling of oxen, mules, ponies, donkeys and pigs. A fair orhui[74]is held annually at most of the market centres and at a few other places. One of the largest is held every spring at T'ang-ho-hsi, close to the District Officer's headquarters, and another at Pei-k'ou, where there is a temple in a picturesque defile. Theatrical performances are always held on such occasions, in fact they constitute part of the religious element of thehui. Though the performances are secular in character they are known asshên hsi, which might be translated "divine" or "religious drama."

A TYPICAL THEATRICAL STAGE BELONGING TO A TEMPLE(see p.130).

VILLAGE THEATRICALS (see p.132).

The drama (such as it is) provides the most popular of all forms of amusement among the agricultural classes. The actors are professionals, who wander from place to place seeking engagements. Contracts are drawn up by middlemen calledhsieh-hsi-ti, and contain a concise statement of how many days the performances are to be given (generally three or four), how many actors are to take part in them, and what the payment is to be. The actors carry with them their own garments, false beards, masks and other "properties," while the stage is supplied by the village. The stone-built theatrical pavilions usually face northwards, towards the gateway of the temple with which they are connected. Temples, and the images in them, face the south: thus the gods, for whose benefit and in whose honour the plays are theoretically given, have a full view of the entertainment. The spectators stand between the temple and the stage. The performances (usually consisting of short separate plays) take place at intervals throughout the whole of each day.

There is very little originality in the plots of the pieces presented; they are all taken from or founded on well-known Chinese legendary episodes or on events described in famous historical novels. If this were not the case, the dramatic methods in vogue in agricultural China would have to be modified; for the dialogue cannot under present conditions be heard distinctly except by a limited number of the audience. Not to mention the gongs and cymbals of the orchestra, which frequently come into action at what appears to foreigners to be the wrong moment, the open air soon dissipates the players' voices, and the great body of spectators ("audience" is hardly an appropriate word) is apt to be somewhat restless, if not noisy. Female parts are generally taken by specially trained boys or young men, though actresses are no longer unknown in China. The acting is rarely good from a European point of view; on the contrary, it is very stiff and full of what seem to us ridiculous mannerisms. But it is unfair to judge of the histrionic art of China from what one sees at a country fair.

The frequent association of the drama with religion in China will naturally recall to the minds of students of English literature the miracle-plays and mysteries of the Middle Ages in Europe. But the analogy is not a very close one. The English drama, regarded historically, may be said to be English through and through. The changes it underwent were almost, if not quite, independent of the history of the drama on the Continent. The evolution of the drama can be traced step by step from its origin to its culmination in the hands of the great Elizabethans. In China the origin of the drama is doubtful; it is not (in its present or any similar form) of great antiquity, and dramatic writing has never taken rank as a very high form of art. Some of the elements of drama may probably be traced in the stately gesture-dances, combined with music, of which we read in some of the oldest Chinese books. Dances which are probably very similar to those performed at the courts of the ruling dukes in Confucius's time may be witnessed at the present day in parts of Further India. In the old Indo-Chinese capital of Vientian on the Mekong (now the capital of French Laos) I witnessed, in 1902, adance of this kind. By a stretch of the imagination it might have been styled a drama in dumb show, but with more dumb show than drama: a dance that aimed at expressing not so much the poetry of graceful movement as the poetry of successive states of more or less dignified repose.

The Chinese drama of to-day is still a drama of posturing and gesture: the player is for ever aiming at "striking an attitude." This is all the more remarkable among a people who in ordinary life consider gesture undignified and indicative of a lack of self-control. It can, I think, be explained only as a survival from the days when the Chinese drama consisted mainly of dance and music. The literary developments of the drama—if indeed they may correctly be described as developments—date only from the time of the Yüan dynasty (1280-1367), and the popularity of the drama among the people seems to have been only of gradual growth since that date. It was apparently an importation from Central Asia, and came to China with the Mongol conquerors. For some time this novel form of art was confined to Peking and the other great centres of Mongol power, and to this day the influence of Peking is shown in the very frequent employment of the Peking dialect even in provinces where that form of speech is unintelligible to the mass of the people.

A theatrical company may be engaged by any person or group of persons willing to pay the required expenses. A theatrical entertainment is not therefore necessarily connected with religion, though in Weihaiwei it is generally so—at least in name. Occasionally a villager who has acquired wealth in Manchuria or elsewhere makes a bid for local popularity by paying the whole expenses out of his own pocket; but as a rule the cost is met out of the common purse. This leads us to a consideration of the internal polity and fiscal arrangements of a Weihaiwei village, which must be clearly understood intheir main outlines if we are to arrive at any adequate conception of the manner in which the peasants of this district, as of nearly the whole of China, regulate their lives and allocate their rights and responsibilities.

Certainly the main interest of the Territory, especially for those interested in sociological questions, lies in the quiet and apparently humdrum life of the village communities. As that life is now, so it has been for unnumbered centuries. There is no manorial system, no "villeinage," no landlordism, no rack-renting. The people of Weihaiwei are practically a population of peasant proprietors, though proprietorship is vested rather in the family (using the word in an extended sense) than in the individual. Villages still bear, in very many cases, the name of the family that lived in them as far back as their history can be traced. Chang-chia-shan is the Hill of the Chang family; Wang-chia-k'uang is the Defile of the Wang family; Chiang-chia-k'ou is the Pass of the Chiang family; Yü-chia-chuang is the village of the Yü family.

There is an old story of a weary traveller in Scotland who, having arrived at a certain country town in the Border district late at night, and finding closed doors everywhere, called out, "Are there no Christians in this town?"—whereat an old woman popped her head out of an upper window and replied, "Nae, nae, we're a' Johnstones and Jardines here." The Scottish town at least had its two surnames; more often than not a Weihaiwei village has only one. There may be Chinese Johnstones or Chinese Jardines; but it is improbable that they will be found together in the same village in such an old-fashioned district as Weihaiwei. This is not, of course, universally the case. When a clan is starved out of existence or has emigrated in a body, or, owing to its paucity of numbers, has admitted immigrants, the village may gradually become the property of several unrelated families. It is then known as atsa hsingvillage, or village of miscellaneous surnames. Its oldname may or may not be perpetuated. Mêng-chia-chuang, which ought to be the village of the Mêng family, is now the property of a well-to-do family or clan named Liang, and the Mêngs have disappeared.

As a rule we find in Weihaiwei either that each village is exclusively inhabited by the people of one name, who are all inter-related and address each other as brothers and uncles and nephews, or that one "surname" is in numbers, wealth and social influence greatly predominant over the others. Title-deeds and tombstones testify to the antiquity of many of the existing Weihaiwei families; many of the peasant-proprietors who share the land among them to-day are the direct or collateral descendants of the people who tilled the same fields in the days of the Sung, Yüan and Ming dynasties.

There are considerable numbers, however, whose ancestors were immigrants from other parts of China; some of these were military colonists, some were transferred by Government from other provinces as a result of political or social troubles connected with rebellions or famines. There are many well-known residents who themselves have never travelled beyond the boundaries of the Wên-têng and Jung-ch'êng districts, but who are well aware, from their carefully-preserved pedigree-scrolls, that their ancestors were brought hither by Government hundreds of years ago from provinces as far distant as Yünnan. The Roman Emperors, we know, frequently adopted a similar method of dealing with certain political exigencies, for they transferred whole bodies of people from one province of the Empire to another; but the fate of the transferred Chinese was better than that of many of the Roman provincials, for they retained their independence and did not become the serfs of overlords.

A typical village of Weihaiwei may be defined as consisting of a group of families all bearing the same surname and all tracing their descent from a singleancestor or a single ancestral stock, each family in the group constituting a semi-independent unit, owning its own lands, possessing certain rights over a common tract of pasture-land and sharing in the rights and responsibilities connected with the upkeep of the Ancestral Temple[75]and its tablets,[76]the family burial-ground,[77]and any land or property that may have been specially set apart to provide for the expenses of religious ceremonies and sacrifices.[78]The more mixed a village becomes, that is, the greater the number of "surnames" that it contains, the more widely does it depart from the uniformity implied by this description. There may, for example, be several ancestral temples, several burial-grounds, many different patches of sacrificial land; though if the immigrants came from a village in the vicinity, and have left there the main body of their clan, it sometimes happens that they will still associate themselves with the parent-village rather than with that in which they live, and will therefore refrain from establishing new centres of ancestral worship.

The units of the village community are not individuals but families. Nothing is more important for an understanding of the wonderfully stable and long-lived social system of China than this fact: that the social and the political unit are one and the same, and that this unit is not the individual but the family.[79]

It is well known that this family-system exists, or till recently existed, in nearly every Asiatic country; and that only within the present generation the advance of European influence and legal notions has in some parts of the Continent brought about a gradual tendency to Western individualism.[80]

But the European must not too hastily assume, when he sees individualism largely replacing the old family-system in such countries as Japan, that the wiser heads in those countries regard the change as being in all respects beneficial. Some of them are inclined to fear that the new system—though its adoption may possibly be necessary in order to supply their country with a certain brute strength which the old system lacked, and so to enable it to cope with European aggression—tends to the grievous injury of much that they believe to be essential to true civilisation. They do not welcome with enthusiasm the emergence above the social and political horizon of that strange new star—the self-contained individual. They contemplate with something like dismay the weakening or breaking of the old family bonds, which if they were sometimes a hindrance to personal advancement and had a cramping influence on the individual life, at least did much to keep within bounds the primitive instincts of selfishness and greed.

Even in Europe there are thinkers who have expressed doubts as to whether our Western individualism is not a terribly fragile and unstable foundation on which to build a vast social system; whether there are not already signs of decay in the very bases of our civilisation. The truth of the matter is that there are certain profound social problems which have never yet been solved either by the East or by the West. We are all yet in various experimental stages of social progress. It may be that if Western theories and ideals have soared to greater heights, Eastern theories and ideals have aimed at producing a greater fundamental solidity;[81]and that, the essential differences being so great, it is inadvisable for either hemisphere to press its ideals too persistently on the other, and dangerous for either to abandon its own ideals too hastily in deference to the other's teaching or example.

Most people have heard a great deal of the high standard of commercial honour that prevails among the Chinese. Testimony to this characteristic has been given so often by English merchants and others that it seems unnecessary to insist upon it. I will only say, in passing, that nearly all business transactions between Chinese and Chinese, even those involving considerable sums of money, are in Weihaiwei still carried out by word of mouth. The point to be emphasised here is that the commercial honesty of the Chinese is to a great extent dependent on and the result of their theory of the relationship between the individual and the family, which theory is in turn based on the social doctrines (such as filial piety) which Confucius taught or sanctioned.

The Western individual who owes money and cannot or will not pay can always shoot himself or abscond or go bankrupt. He may leave a stigma on his family if it is known who his family are, but the debts were his own and his relations cannot be held responsible. But the identification of the interests and obligations of an individual with those of his family have in agricultural China this peculiar and socially beneficial result, that a man cannot dissolve his liabilities by such a simple process as going bankrupt or dying.[82]His rights are inherited by his sons: so are his liabilities. The law, it is true, limits a man's liability for an ancestor's debts to the extent of his own inheritance: but the rule of custom is sterner than the rule of law. In 1907 a man whom we will call Ku brought me a petition in which he stated that in the seventh year of Chia Ch'ing (one hundred and five years earlier) an ancestor of his had contracted a debt of threetiao(a sum which at the present day is worth five or six shillings) to a man Liu. Liu's descendant, rummaging among the family archives, had recently chanced to come across documentary evidence of this debt (the grimy little scrap of paper was produced in court) and he forthwith brought it to Ku, who had never heard of the transaction, with the suggestion that final settlement of this long-standing little bill was now eminently desirable. Principal and interest together then amounted to something like twenty times the original amount.

The reason why Ku brought his case to my court was not that he objected to this unexpected call upon his slender purse, for as it happened he had already paid the whole amount without a murmur; he merely came to suggest that as the original debtor had two direct living descendants besides himself, those two persons should be required to pay their fair shares of the ancestral debt. He wished to know the views of the court on the point before he demanded payment from them. The man might in law have repudiated this debt altogether: Chinese law does not and could not go as far as local custom in settling questions that directly or indirectly concern the honour of a family. Repudiation of an ancestor's debt is, however, as rare in a Weihaiwei village as is bankruptcy. Debts may go unpaid, but only at the risk of a "loss of face" that would in most cases cause the debtor much greater inconvenience and discomfort than the monetary loss.

Weihaiwei has as yet shown but little tendency to modify its semi-patriarchal social system as a consequence of its fifteen years of continuous contact with Western civilisation. The individual is still sunk in the family. He cannot divest himself of the rights any more than of the responsibilities that belong to him through his family membership. The Weihaiwei farmer has indeed so limited a conception of his own existence as a separate and distinct personality that in ordinary speech he continually confuses himselfwith his ancestors or with living members of his family. Examples of this are of repeated occurrence in the law-courts. "I bought this land and now the Tung family is trying to steal it from me," complains a petitioner. "When did you buy it?" asks the magistrate. "Two hundred years ago," promptly replies the oppressed one. Says another, "My rights to the property of Sung Lien-têng are being contested by my distant cousin. I am the rightful owner. I buried Sung Lien-têng and have charge of his soul-tablet and carry out the ancestral ceremonies." "When did Sung Lien-têng die?" questions the magistrate. "In the fortieth year of K'ang Hsi" is the reply. This means that the deceased whose property is in dispute died childless in 1701, that plaintiff's ancestor in that year defrayed the funeral expenses and acted as chief mourner, that by family agreement he was installed as adopted son to the deceased and heir to his property, and that plaintiff claims to be the adopted son's descendant and heir. Looking upon his family, dead and alive, as one and indivisible, he could not see any practical difference between the statement that certain funeral rites had been carried out by himself and the statement that they had been carried out by a direct ancestor.

Another litigant, whose long residence abroad had had no apparent effect on his general outlook on life, came to me very recently with the complaint that on his return from Manchuria he had found his land in the possession of a neighbour. "I went to Manchuria as my family had not enough to eat," he said. "I came home this year and wished to redeem the land I had mortgaged before I went away. But I found it had been already redeemed by my neighbour, a cousin, and he refuses to let me redeem it from him." On being asked when he had mortgaged his land and emigrated, he replied: "In Chia Ch'ing 3"—that is, in 1798. He was merely identifying himself with his own great-grandfather.

In another case a man whom I will call A brought a plaint to the effect that he wished to adopt B, and that C for various reasons refused to allow this adoption to take place. On investigation it turns out that B is dead and that it is his infant son D whom A really wishes to adopt. B and D—father and son—seem to A merely different expressions, as it were, of the same entity. This does not mean, of course, that supposing B were still alive it would not matter whether B or D actually became A's adopted son. The rules of adoption in China are strictly regulated. A man cannot adopt any one he likes. Not to mention other necessary conditions, the person adopted must belong to the appropriate generation, that is, to the generation immediately junior to that of the adopter. In the case before us the infant D belonged to the proper generation, and his father B could not have been adopted. To our notions it seems all the stranger that A, knowing this, should have spoken of B when he meant D: yet this manner of speech is exceedingly common.

But after all, if we wish to assure ourselves that the individual is not regarded as an independent unit we must rely on stronger evidence than strange verbal inaccuracies. Perhaps the best and most convincing proofs will be found in the restrictions placed on the powers of the individual to dispose of real property.

It is necessary at the outset to lay stress on the fact that there is no evidence, so far as I am aware, of the former existence, in Weihaiwei or elsewhere in China, of agrarian communism. A village community may indeed possess a common tract of pasture-land, or common pasture or "fuel" rights over private hill-lands at certain seasons of the year,[83]or some arable fields may under certain conditions be cultivated by different persons or different families in turn: but if we were to assume from this that all arable land was once owned in common and that individual or family proprietorship has only gradually superseded an old communistic system, we should be entirely wrong. Students of the laws and customs relating to land must be careful, as Fustel de Coulanges has clearly warned them, "not to confuse agrarian communism with family ownership, which may in time become village ownership without ceasing to be a real proprietorship."[84]

In China all land theoretically belongs to the Emperor and the land-tax paid by cultivators may be regarded, from one point of view, as rent payable by tenant to proprietor. The Emperor is the Son of Heaven (T'ien Tzŭ) and owns the whole Empire (literally "what is under Heaven"—T'ien hsia):a fortiorihe is owner of every separate patch of tilled land that the Empire contains. But for the people of China the ultimate rights of the Emperor are a matter of legal theory only. In practice, land is privately owned in China just as it is privately owned in England; but whereas in England a land-owner may (if his land is not "tied up") exercise all the rights of absolute ownership quite regardless of the wishes of his nearest relations, not to mention his distant cousins, in China the individual land-owner cannot disregard the inextinguishable rights of his family.[85]

Be it remembered, moreover, that "family" does not imply merely a father and a mother with their children. It includes also nephews, grand-nephews, cousins of several degrees, and in fact all who come within the description ofwu fu, or persons on whose decease one must assume one of the five degrees of "mourning." In England, if a man's title-deeds are in order, and the land is free from encumbrances, no one will question his perfect right, as an independent individual, to sell his land how and to whom he chooses. It is unnecessary for him to consult relations, neighbours or friends. Now in Weihaiwei, which is a typical Chinese agricultural district, the man who tried to dispose of his landed property without fully discussing the whole matter with all the prominent members and "elders" of his village—or rather with those among them who are of the same surname and come within thewu fu—would find himself foiled at the outset, for no one would venture to run the risk of buying land that was being offered for sale in so peculiar and irregular a manner. Even if the purchaser, being a man of wealth and influence, were prepared to run all possible risks, who would be found to draw up the deed of sale? Who would take the place of the numerous relatives who always append their signatures to such documents as proof that all is in order? The would-be seller's title-deeds may be in perfect order; the land may have come down to him from his direct ancestors and his right to sell may be apparently incontestable. But he is not the less bound to satisfy his uncles and brothers and cousins, as well as his own sons, as to the reason for his desire to sell, and even if they agree that a sale is necessary (owing perhaps to the seller's debts) he is by no means permitted to dispose of the property by public auction or offer it to the highest bidder.

All his relatives, more or less in the order of their seniority or proximity, must be given the option of purchase, and if the price offered by an influential relative is considered fair by the general voice of the village or the clan, he must perforce accept it and be thankful or refrain from selling his land. Thetheory that seems to lie at the root of this custom is not that the land is the common property of the clan but that the individualper seis only the limb of a body, and cannot therefore act except in accordance with the will of the organism to which he belongs; and that it is contrary to the interests of the family that a portion of the real property belonging to any of its members should pass into alien hands.

Absolute sales of land are, indeed, not regarded with favour even if conducted according to the "rules." They have grown common in Weihaiwei during the past few years, partly because the great increase in the value of agricultural land has tempted many to take advantage of a condition of the real-estate market which they think may only be temporary; partly because foreign occupation and other recent events have opened out new avenues of employment to large numbers of the people who are willing, therefore, to dispose of the little plots of land that are no longer their all-in-all; partly because many of the smaller land-holders are engaging in commerce or emigrating to Chihli and to Manchuria. For these and other reasons a good deal of land has changed and is changing hands, but the old custom whereby real property can be transferred only from relative to relative is still observed with very slight if any relaxation of its former strictness.

A Chinese deed of sale, carefully examined, throws an interesting light on the systems of land-tenure and the conditions under which transfer is permissible. Without going into technical details, which would be of small interest to the general reader, attention may be drawn to the fact that the reason why the seller is disposing of his land must always be stated. The theory seems to be that he should not want to sell his land, and that his desire to do so is highly regrettable if not reprehensible. The document therefore sets forth in detail that (for example) "Ch'i Tê-jang of Ch'i-chia-chuang,being altogether withoutmoney or means of subsistence, is obliged to sell that piece of land measuring ...muin extent, bounded as follows: ..., to his younger "brother" of the same generation [really a cousin] named Ch'i Shuan, to be held by him as his absolute property for ever."

To these clauses are appended any reservations or special provisions by which the purchaser is to be bound, and the deed closes with the statement that it is drawn up "in case hereafter there should be no proof of the transaction." Then follow the names and crosses of the witnesses, all of whom are members of the "family,"[86]the name of the writer of the deed, who is often a schoolmaster, and the name of the village headman, who is generally himself a relative. The witnesses, it will now be understood, are very far from being merely persons invited to testify to the execution of a deed. They have themselves been consulted at every step of the negotiations, it is they by whom the purchase price has probably been fixed, and their consent has been necessary before the deed could be drawn up or the land sold.

Mortgages in Weihaiwei, as probably in the rest of China, are much commoner than sales. A farmer will generally sell his land only because he must; he will mortgage it on very slender provocation. As a mortgage does not definitely alienate the land from the family, the customary rules regulating this transaction are much more flexible than those relating to sales. Sometimes a piece of land is merely mortgaged as security for a temporary loan, in which case the mortgagor remains on the land;[87]in other cases it is mortgaged because the owner is going abroad or because the opposition on the part of the family to a definite sale is too strong to be overcome. In such cases the rights of cultivation are transferred to the mortgagee. In the great majority of cases mortgaged lands are subsequently redeemed.[88]

Some of the customs regarding redemption are rather curious, and strongly emphasise the theory that redemption is a duty which must be undertaken by another member of the family if the original mortgagor will not or cannot do it himself. For example, A and B are two brothers. Theyfên chia, that is to say they set up separate establishments, each taking his own share of the family property. A remains at home, quietly cultivating his farm, while B decides to emigrate to Manchuria. In order to raise some necessary capital he decides to mortgage his share of the family land; but as neither A nor any other relative can provide the amount of money he requires, he is obliged to mortgage his property to an outsider C—a man of different surname who lives in a neighbouring village. This man C takes possession of the land as mortgagee and cultivates it for some years. B meanwhile is in Manchuria, and no one knows how he is faring, or whether he is alive or dead. A now goes to C and tells him that he wishes to redeem the land mortgaged to B. It is obvious that according to strict legality the land should only be redeemed by the original mortgagor. B's name alone is on the deed: A had nothing whatever to do with the transaction. Yet, by custom, C must resign the land to A; not merely because A produces the mortgage-price, but because he is one of B's family.

Perhaps several years later B returns from Manchuria. He has money and wishes to redeem his land. He soon discovers that it has been redeemed by his brother A. His own rights of redemption, however, are still valid; he applies to A for the return of the land for the same price at which it was originally mortgaged to C. A must comply. If B has been absent many years and meanwhile the land hasgreatly risen in value, A will probably give it up with a very bad grace. If the original mortgage-deed was badly drawn up or there are some doubts about what actually took place, A will perhaps refuse to surrender the land at all unless or until he is ordered to do so by the court. Litigation concerning transactions of this kind has been common in Weihaiwei of recent years. A man who mortgaged his land many years ago, perhaps at a time of famine and scarcity, for a ridiculously small sum, returns from abroad to find his land worth five or more times what it was worth then. He is naturally eager to redeem it, while the person in whose hands it now is—whether the original mortgagee or one of the mortgagor's family—is equally eager to retain it. The court in such cases naturally supports local custom, though there are sometimes bewildering complications which render it no easy matter to give a rigidly just decision. Deeds of sale and mortgage of real property used to be drawn up in an excessively vague and slipshod manner—the very boundaries of the land being either not mentioned at all or inaccurately; moreover nearly all such deeds were "white" deeds—that is to say they had not been put through the formal process of registration which would turn them into legal documents. To remedy this state of things (which was not to be wondered at in a district where ignorant peasants do their own conveyancing without legal assistance) certain recommendations were made some years ago which resulted in the adoption of a new system whereby all intending sellers and mortgagors of land are obliged to use an officially-stamped deed-form, on which spaces are provided for the proper description of land-areas and other necessary particulars. The forms are numbered and kept in counterfoil-books, and no deed can evade registration except through the negligence of Government clerks. Government has in this simple procedure a small but unfailing source of revenue, the magistrates find theirlabours in the court simplified, and the people are greatly benefited by having more satisfactory title-deeds to their lands (or rather proofs of legal purchase and mortgage) than they ever had before.

If the Chinese restrictions on a man's freedom to dispose of his own property are regarded from the Western point of view as an intolerable and unjustifiable interference with the rights of the individual, let it be remembered that the Chinese system is expressly intended to protect the family rather than the individual. But even so, does it not safeguard the rights of the individual as well? If A has complete control over his land and can bequeath it or sell it to whom he chooses, what about his son B? The average Chinese villager is at birth a potential landed proprietor.[89]His share in the family inheritance may be small, but his wants, too, are small. One often hears of an Englishman's desire to "found a family," by which is generally meant that he aspires to a position "in the county." The "family" of a Chinese never requires to be founded: it is there already. He does not require to engage a searcher of records to find out who his ancestors were so that he may be provided with a pedigree: he will find all the necessary information in the Ancestral Temple of his clan.

Whatever the faults of the Chinese social system may be there is no doubt that in Weihaiwei it very largely accounts for the complete absence of pauperism (though no one is rich), for the orderliness of the people (nearly every one has a stake in the land and has nothing to gain and everything to lose from disorder), for the uninterrupted succession of father and son in the homesteads, and for the long pedigrees attested by family graveyards and ancestral tablets. Certainly the family trees of many of the British Peerage or even of the English squirearchy and the chieftains of Scottish clans, would make a poor forest compared with those of the majority of the farmer-folk of Weihaiwei.

As a father cannot, except in exceptional circumstances, deprive his son of the family inheritance, it follows that a man's power of making a will is severely limited. The division of property between brothers may take place either after their father's death or while he is still living. The process is calledfên chia,—Division of the Family. When brothersfên-chiait means in general terms that each takes his share of the family inheritance and leaves the paternal roof: and the document which is drawn up to define and give effect to the agreement is known as afên-shuor written statement of the details of division.[90]The share of each participating member of the family is clearly stated in thefên-shu, and each is given a copy of the document to hold henceforth as his title-deed. Afên-shuis in Weihaiwei generally drawn up by mutual agreement between brothers after their father's death. If the arrangement is made during the father's (or mother's) lifetime, a portion of the property usually remains in the parent's hands asyang-lao-ti—"Nourish-old-age land." After his or her death theyang-lao-tiis made to bear the cost of the funeral, and what remains is divided up among the heirs. A portion of the property is sometimes set aside aschi t'ien(sacrificial land) to be cultivated in turn by all the brothers participating in the division. Sometimes the father keeps noyang-lao-tifor himself but merely stipulates either that he shall be supported by all his sons in turn or shall receive from them a fixed proportion of the produce of their several shares. The former of these arrangements works very well when the members of the family are in complete harmony with one another; but sometimes a discordant note is struck either by an unfilial son or (much more often) by one of the sons' wives, who perhaps fails to treat her husband's father with proper respect.[91]A woman in China, be it remembered, practically severs her connection with her own family when she marries; her husband's parents are henceforth regarded as her own, and she owes them just the same obedience and filial respect that are owed them by her husband. Thepatria potestas, in fact, is exerted not only over sons and grandsons but also over their wives. But in practice we find that sons' wives do not always, to put it mildly, show the meek and reverential obedience to theirkung-tieh, or father-in-law, that Chinese law enjoins and public opinion considers desirable.

As the mother, no less than the father of a family, is made the object of ancestral "worship," it follows that she succeeds, nominally if not always actually, to her deceased husband's control over the family property. A widow is regarded as possessing a life-interest in her husband's lands, subject of course to the rights, actual or potential, of her sons. If thefên-chiahas already taken place, all she can personally control is heryang-lao-ti. If, however, she enters into a second marriage, she must relinquish all her rights in her first husband's property. The reason of this is obvious. If widows were allowed to endow their second husbands with the property of the first, there would be a gradual disintegration of the system of family-ownership. There would no longer be any guarantee that the land would follow the "name."

If the "family-division" orfên-chiadoes not take place till after the father's death but during the lifetime of the mother, the deed of division orfên-shumust make reference to the fact that the transaction has received the mother's authorisation. The following may be taken as a very ordinary type offên-shuin Weihaiwei:

"Thisfên-shuis made under the authority of Yü Ts'ung Shih.[92]There are three sons, of whom the second, Shu-yen, has been 'adopted out' to another branch of the family.[93]The following division of property is made between the eldest son Shu-tung and the third son Shu-shan. The division is necessary because the families of Shu-tung and Shu-shan have become so large that it is no longer convenient for them all to live together. With the knowledge and assent of their relatives they have drawn lots for the division of the property, and the result is as follows: Shu-tung's share is the plot of land ...; Shu-shan's share is the family house, consisting of the three-roomed central building and two side-buildings of two rooms each, together with the garden and fields bounded.... This deed is made out in duplicate, in order that Shu-tung and Shu-shan may each possess an original and hold it as his just title to the property allotted to him. This deed is drawn up and attested by the clan-members so that none of the parties concerned may hereafter go back on the division of property herein described. If any one raises any complaint hereafter, let him be sent to the magistrate in order that he may receive punishment for the crime of want of filial piety (pu hsiao)."

Then follow the names of a number of attesting and assenting relatives, the name of the writer of the deed, and the date. Simultaneously a second deed, called ach'u tanor Reservation ofYang-lao-ti, is very often drawn up in such terms as these:

"Thisch'u tanis executed by Yü T'sung Shih. Inasmuch as her three sons have set up separate establishments, and one of them, namely her second son Shu-yen, has been adopted by another branch of the family, Yü Ts'ung Shih, with the knowledge and assent of the elders and relatives of the family, reserves to her own use that house situated ... and that piece of land measuring ..., for the purpose of providing for her support during life and for her burial expenses after death.[94]All that remains of this property after these charges have been met is to be equally divided between the first and third sons T'sung Shu-tung and Ts'ung Shu-shan. The second son, Ts'ung Shu-yen, has no share in or right to any portion of this property, as he cannot carry the family property away with him when he is 'adopted out.'[95]Lest there should be no proof of this transaction hereafter, this deed is drawn up and attested, and is to be preserved for future reference."

It will be seen from the first of these two documents that a method of dividing real property among brothers is the drawing of lots (nien chuorchiu fên). There is no system of primogeniture: all the brothers receive share and share alike. The process of lot-drawing is a very simple one. The family-in-council begins by dividing the property into a number of shares corresponding with the number of the beneficiaries. The shares are approximately equal in value: one may include the family dwelling-house and a small area of arable land; another share, containing no house, will comprise a larger area of land; and so forth. Descriptions of all the shares are written on separate pieces of paper, which are folded up or twisted into little bundles and thrown together in a heap. The second, third and fourth brothers, and so on down to the youngest, draw lots, each in the order of seniority; the sole remaining lot is thus left to the eldest brother. Each must be content with the piece of land, or the house, or the vegetable garden, as the case may be, which is inscribed on his lot, though friendly exchanges are of course permissible. The eldest brother is so far from having a claim to a larger or better share than the rest that, as we see, he is not even entitled to draw the first lot: probably, indeed, it is to emphasise the principle of share and share alike that custom requires him to take the lot that is left to the last. The drawing of lots is not resorted to in cases where the shares are all equal and there are no preferences.

If as a result of repeated subdivisions the family property has become so small that there is not enough to "go round," or the family is so large that an equal division would leave each with too little for his support, the usual arrangement is for the entire property to be mortgaged or sold to the nearest relatives who are willing to buy. The cash proceeds are then divided equally among the brothers, who separate to seek their fortunes, each according to his bent. One may emigrate to Manchuria, or join his numerous fellow-provincials in the capital, another may set up a shop in the neighbouring market-village, a third may wander off to one of the great commercial ports on the coast, and seek employment under foreigners. The unsuccessful ones may possibly never be heard of again; the successful ones will probably return after many days to their native village and re-purchase or redeem the old family property.

The remarkable increase in the value of agricultural land that has taken place in the Weihaiwei Territory during the past few years is a pleasant symptom of the advancing prosperity of the people. The fact must be admitted, however, that the increase is to a considerable extent due to their economic backwardness. There is a serious want of local means for the satisfactory investment of capital. To purchase land is to the great mass of the population the only safeway in which savings or profits can be employed. The consequence is that the land has now acquired a somewhat fictitious value, a fact which may come prominently into view if the people should be visited by some calamity such as a succession of bad harvests.

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