him to go to the bank and bring back the money. I had known John a
little over a week; yet any one who knows China will understand that I was
running no appreciable risk. The individual Chinaman is simply a part of a
family, the family is part of a neighbourhood, the neighbourhood is part
of a village or district, and so on. In all its relations with the central
government, the province is responsible for the affairs of its larger
districts, these for the smaller districts, the smaller districts for the
villages, the villages for the neighbourhoods, the neighbourhoods for the
family, the family for the individual. If John had disappeared with my
money after cashing the draft, and had afterwards been caught, punishment
would have been swift and severe. Very likely he would have lost his head.
If the authorities had been unable to find John, they would have punished
his family. Punishment would surely have fallen on somebody.

The real effect of this system, continued as it has been through
unnumbered centuries, has naturally been to develop a clear, keen sense
of personal responsibility. For, whatever may occur, somebody is
responsible. The family, in order to protect itself, trains its
individuals to live up to their promises, or else not to make promises.
The neighbourhood, well knowing that it will be held accountable for its
units, watches them with a close eye. When a new family comes into a
neighbourhood, the neighbours crowd about and ask questions which are not,
in view of the facts, so impertinent as they might sound. Indeed, this
sense of family and neighbourhood accountability is so deeply rooted that
it is not uncommon, on the failure of a merchant to meet his obligations,
for his family and friends to step forward and help him to settle his
accounts. It is the only way in which they can clear themselves.

All these evidences would seem to indicate that the Chinese people, on the
one hand, have an innate fear of and respect for their government and
their law, such as they are; and that the government, on the other hand,
is, in the matter of enforcing the traditional law, one of the most
powerful governments on earth. None but an exceedingly well-organized
government could deliberately incite its people to repeated riots and
massacres without losing control of them. The Chinese government has
seemed to have not the slightest difficulty in keeping the people
quiet--when it wanted to. The story of Shantung Provi