The provincial governments were far less important in the life of the provinces than was the National Government for the nation. They had the national civilian and military authorities to cope with, in addition to the impositions of their own local military. Their sources of revenue were not ample, and their authority not well established. In some provinces the commission form was adopted only as a matter of legal compliance, leaving to local leaders the actual conduct of affairs. In fact, reform centered on the _hsien_ rather than the province, partly because the province was a potential rival to the nation, and partly because the _hsien_ was a more organic unit in Chinese society. Between the provincial authorities and those of the _hsien_ there stood Special Commissioners of Administrative Inspection, whose function was to relate the two administrative units and to work for the modernization of _hsien_ organization. The _hsien_ served, and still serves, not only a rural area but also the central municipality in which the _hsien_ magistrate has his headquarters. The _yamên_ (official building) occupies the center of the town, mostly a one-story edifice built around a courtyard; some _yamêns_ still display the two flagpoles and the two stone lions that were required by the custom of the Empire. Usually the _yamên_ contains: "(_a_) the rooms occupied by the tax collectors and the administrative and judicial police; (_b_) the court and the assembly room; (_c_) the offices of the various bureaus; (_d_) the residence for magistrates and the dormitory for officers."[6] The conduct of _hsien_ government is influenced by three main groups--the illiterate masses, the conservative gentry, and the younger progressives. In those _hsien_ units where no reformist or revolutionary pressure is felt, the magistrate and the tax collector do little more than collect funds, and the administration is marked by the laxity which characterized old Chinese government in its inadequate form. The gentry, the scholar-administrators, and the tax collectors represent a single social group and manage to rule in their own economic interest. In other _hsien_ units the influence of modern government is noticeable; the magistrate is in most cases a man determined to put into effect the standards of twentieth-century administration. The prestige and power of young men with modern educations have so increased that they are able to obtain a considerable number of magistracies, and if they are willing they may introduce a respectable measure of good government and reform.