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EAST ASIA.
minister Wangmang, after seizing the throne, declared the whole land henceforth
imperial property. "No subject shall keep more than one tsin (about twelve
acres), or possess more than eight man slaves. The sale of land is forbidden, so
that all may keep what yields them bread. All excess of land in the hands of
any one reverts to the Crown, and shall be distributed to the communes according
to their needs. Whoever questions the wisdom of these measures shall be banished,
whoever resists them shall be put to death." Yet a few years later on the
magnates had recovered their domains, and the attempt to reconstitute the old
communal system again failed. "Not Yu or Shun himself," said a contemporary
philosopher, " could now restore it. All things change ; tb.e streams shift their
courses, and what time has effaced disappears for ever."
After many social convulsions and changes of dynasties, the Chinese political
economists, abandoning the old conception of communal property, attempted to
introduce a new system. No similar revolution was ever elsewhere essayed by the
governing classes for the transformation of the whole social fabric. Wanganche,
having become the friend and adviser of the Emperor Chentsung, boldly set about
the destruction of the old order of
things. In 1069 he issued a decree abolishing
all individual property. The State became sole owner, and undertook to distribute
equally the produce of the soil amongst the people. Wealth and poverty were
alike suppressed, labour and sustenance being secured to all on an equal footing.
The industries were placed under State control, and for a period of five years
capitalists were required to hand over their capital to the Government. Notwith-
standing the opposition of the mandarins and the old feudatory lords, Wanganche
succeeded in peacefully maintaining this imperial communism for fifteen years.
But a change of rulers sufficed to overthrow the new regime, which met the views
neither of the people nor of the great, and which had, moreover, created a class of
inquisitors, who had become the true owners of the land.
Under the Mongol rule properties changed hands abruptly, and a new feudal
system arose, based on the right of conquest. The imperial grandees seized the
great fiefs, comprising thousands and tens of thousands of acres, and every private
soldier received an estate all to himself. Being at the same time anxious to extend
the pasture lauds for their horses, the Mongolians conceived the strange idea of
converting the land under tillage into grassy steppes, and driving
the Chinese
peasantry southwards. The cultivation of the plains of Peking was officially
forbidden, but the attempt completely failed. Instead of driving the natives
beyond the Hoang-ho, the Mongolians themselves were compelled to withdraw, with
their families and herds, beyond the Great Wall.
The regime at present prevailing in China is that of small holdings. But
under the direction of the elders the land often remains undivided in the hands of
all the members of a family, or even of a village. Thus are traces everywhere
preserved of the old communal system. Large capitals are invested chiefly in
trade and the industries, while the land in certain provinces remains almost entirely
in the hands of the cultivators. Nevertheless there still remain many vast
domains rented to small farmers and others, who share the summer crops with the