CENTRAL BUREAUCRACY 619(Saganwon) - the third censorate agency - because it was superfluous. Yu was
even reluctant to retain the Office of Inspector-General because although spe-
cial remonstrators had first been appointed in the Han dynasty as a means of
"widening the pathways of speech," creating a separate and distinct office for
this purpose had actually reduced the opportunity for freedom of speech. Prior
to that time every subordinate in each administrative unit had been allowed to
voice his criticism of affairs under his jurisdiction, but in later ages only offi-
cial "remonstrators" were allowed the freedom to criticize, and most of them
used their political position not to protest but to protect themselves against their
own removal by rulers and reformers.
Yu also cited two cases from China to demonstrate that the professional remon-
strators had actually corrupted the politics of the era. Hu Chih-t'ang criticized
Empress Wu of the Tang dynasty for having allowed censors to give heed to
false and unjust accusations against officials for wrongdoing, and Ch'iu Chiin
of the Ming dynasty condemned the continuation of these habits into Sung times
and called for a return to factual reporting and prohibition of calumnious
charges.^30 In other words, in traditional China and Korea the debate over the
issue of thc hreadth and license for public criticism, as opposed to the defense
against libel and false accusation, was carried out in the context of accepted insti-
tutions for official surveillance and remonstrance. Yu was trying to strike a proper
balance between the two.
Documents and Historical RecordsYu was willing to continue the handling and transmission of government doc-
uments by the six Royal Secretaries (rank 3A) and eighty-nine clerks and run-
ners of the Royal Secretariat (Sungjongwon), but the recording of documents
for historical references was to be entrusted to official s in the Spring and Autumn
Office (Ch'unch'ugwan). One of the aberrant procedures in the keeping of his-
torical archives was the supervising of national history by the prime minister in
China. Fan Tsu-yii, a follower of Ssu-ma Kuang in Sung times, criticized the
prime minister's access to historical documents, and Liu Chih-chi of the Tang
complained that there were far more official historians than were needed, and
most recorders were reluctant to express their opinions. In the Han period,
recorders were not keeping pace with the emperor's daily events, and histori-
ans were running the risk of jeopardizing enemies and antagonizing members
of the nobility by using their posts as vantage points for criticism.
Ou-yang Hsiu of Sung times admonished the historians to keep accurate records
of good and bad deeds of officials, and criticized historians who preferred only
to restrict themselves to keeping mundane records of those who were appointed
or dismissed from office. The records ofthe Daily Record olEl'ents (Shih-cheng-
chi) and the Records olDaily Comings and Goings (Chi-chii-chu) were sup-
posed to provide detailed accounts of affairs, but officials acutcly sensed the
danger involved in such accounts and reduced these documents to simple