of liberty, none can be compared with the people of China at the present day.
The gentry, bullies of the countryside, gobble up their poorer neighbours like fish, and there are no means of resisting them; traders abscond, leaving their debts unpaid, and those who have been swindled have no means of redress. Now, it is open to all men to become gentry or traders; it follows, therefore, that the liberty of the community is also a point of importance. Is not this so? In the highest classes there are men and women who make a perfect cesspool of official life;―is this liberty? In the towns there are young and old who look on opium as a necessary food;―is this liberty? In a civilized State, there would be, for light offences of the kind, a money fine, and for grave offences, sequestration of property. Other points in like manner; but so many are they that, were I ten men, I could not reckon then all up. Viewed in this light, I ask you, “who are they who enjoy liberty,[1]―the people of China, or the people of other nations?”
- ↑ Here, the evils, not the blessings, of too much liberty.
