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PT. III. SECT. IX.
THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-BZE.
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disorder. When the officials attend to their duties, and the common people are anxiously concerned about their business, there is no encroachment on one another's rights.
'Fields running to waste; leaking rooms; insufficiency of food and clothing ; taxes unprovided for ; want of harmony among wives and concubines; and want of order between old and young ;-—these are the troubles of the common people.
* Incompetency for their charges ; inattention to their official business ; want of probity in conduct ; carelessness and idleness in subordinates ; failure of merit and excellence; and uncertainty of rank and emolument :—these are the troubles of great officers.
No loyal ministers at their courts; the clans in their states rebellious; want of skill in their mechanics; articles of tribute of bad quality ; late appearances at court in spring and autumn; and the dissatisfaction of the sovereign :-these are the troubles of the feudal lords.
Want of harmony between the Yin and Yang; unseasonableness of cold and heat, affecting all things injuriously; oppression and disorder among the feudal princes, their presuming to plunder and attack one another, to the injury of the people ; ceremonies and music ill-regulated; the resources for expenditure exhausted or deficient; the social relationships uncared for; and the people abandoned to licentious disorder :- these are the troubles of the Son of Heaven and his ministers.
Now, Sir, you have not the high rank of a ruler, a feudal lord, or a minister of the royal court, nor are you in the inferior position of a great minister, with his departments of business, and yet you take
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