[8] The mass of the people
were as much brutalized and oppressed by the landed aristocracy as
they could have been by any official aristocracy before towns and
higher classes were created by the concentration of capital.
The same observations are applicable to China. There the land all
belongs to the sovereign, as in India; and, as in India, it is liable
to the same eternal subdivision among the sons of those who hold it
under him. Capital is nowhere more concentrated in China than in
India; and all the great works that add to the fertility of the soil,
and facilitate the distribution of the land labour of the country are
formed by the sovereign out of the public revenue. The revenue is, in
consequence, one of office;[9] and no man considers himself
respectable,[10] unless invested with some office under Government,
that is, under the Emperor. Subdivision of labour, concentration of
capital, and machinery render an Englishman everywhere dependent upon
the co-operation of multitudes; while the Chinaman, who as yet knows
little of either, is everywhere independent, and able to work his way
among strangers.
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