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Art. 9.-FOUR YEARS OF THE CHINESE REPUBLIC.*

1. Constitution-building in China. By Prof. L. R. O. Bevan. 'North China Daily News and Herald,' 1910. 2. The Japanese Empire and its Economic Conditions. By Joseph Dautremer. Fisher Unwin, 1910.

3. Financial and Historical Review of the Chinese Revolution. Far Eastern Review.' Shanghai, April, 1912. 4. La Chine et le Mouvement constitutionnel (1910-'11). By Jean Rodes. Paris: Alcan, 1913.

CHINA at the present moment is weaker than at any previous period in her long history, while Japan, already a first-class Power, is steadily increasing her power and enhancing her prestige. This statement of an incontrovertible fact, the relevancy of which will be seen later, will serve to introduce a study of recent events and developments in China, undertaken with the hope that it may bring to light the reasons for the failure of the Chinese people to make effective use of the opportunities for progress and reform presented by the abdication of the Manchu rulers early in 1912.

Political consciousness is not an indigenous growth in China. The system of government that prevailed throughout the Manchu régime was in theory autocratic. With the exception of the Taiping Rebellion, which was ostensibly anti-dynastic, the risings which occurred from time to time were usually protests against unduly heavy taxation. There is no evidence that there was any desire on the part of the bulk of the people to take a personal share in the government of the country. So long as the exactions of the governing classes did not exceed a certain limit, the people were indifferent to the form of government. Had it been possible for China to evade all diplomatic intercourse with Western nations and to interdict the residence of foreigners in China, it is probable that the development of political consciousness among the Chinese would have been long delayed. The political convictions that inspired many of the revolutionaries in 1911-12 were not indigenous. The belief

*This article was written and despatched from China some time before the death of Yuan Shih-kai on June 6 (EDITOR).

that it was the right of the individual to claim some part in determining by whom, or in what manner, he was to be governed was an alien conception. Moreover, the awakening of political consciousness, even in the few, was of slow growth. So late as the beginning of this century many foreigners were inclined to fear that what has been described as the 'decay of China' could be arrested only by placing the Government in commission, or by a partition of the country. A thrill of hope had been felt in 1898, when Kang Yu-wei and other reformers prevailed upon the late Emperor Kwang Hsü to promulgate his famous Reform Edicts; but, when it was seen that the sole result was the virtual dethronement of the Emperor, the decapitation of some of the reformers and the expatriation of others, it was generally felt that there was but little ground for hope of regeneration from within.

This pessimism was not wholly justified. The effect of several decades of gradually extending intercourse with foreigners, though not giving many surface indications, was considerable. Railways, posts and telegraphs, and newspapers were weakening provincial jealousies and aiding in the dissemination of political ideas. The huge size of the field made tillage in preparation for the crop of reform tedious and long, but the work was making such sure progress that the great EmpressDowager felt compelled to direct the operations which she was powerless to suspend. As she could not prevent the breaking of the ground, she determined that hers should be the choice of the seed to be sown.

A disposition has been evinced in some quarters to throw doubt upon the genuineness of the EmpressDowager's conversion to constitutionalism, but there seems to be justification for the belief that she really recognised that the nation would be strengthened if constitutionalism were introduced. She was also much too sagacious to suppose that, after the damning exposures of the incompetence of the bureaucracy in 1894-5 and 1900-01, the people would tolerate the perpetuation of a system which had twice broken down badly in the face of a crisis. Moreover, her strongly developed political instinct would teach her that only by the creation of a bond of affection between the Throne

and the Chinese people could the downfall of the dynasty be averted. Is it not reasonable to suppose that patriotism and statecraft combined induced the EmpressDowager to associate herself with the cause of reform? The remarkable deliberation with which it was proposed that the advance towards representative government should be made was not a proof of insincerity, but an indication of distrust in the political capacity of the 'foolish people'—a distrust, it may be remarked, not unnatural in an Imperial Lady who had enjoyed autocratic power for half a century.

It is probable, indeed almost certain, that the EmpressDowager intended that the establishment of constitutionalism in China should, as far as possible, proceed on the lines adopted by the statesmen of Japan under the far-sighted and wise leadership of the late Prince Ito. Those who, after the restoration of the Emperor to secular sovereignty, directed national affairs in Japan determined to educate the people politically before giving them, even theoretically, any voice in the government. Administrative reform was first carried out by a bureaucracy responsible only to the sovereign. When the time came for the Emperor to redeem his promise to grant a constitution, the reformed machinery of government was working efficiently, and the people had gained rudimentary political knowledge.

It must be confessed that the Empress-Dowager allowed the superficial resemblances between the position in Japan when the Constitution was granted and that which existed in China to blind her to fundamental differences. In China the first feeble and tentative attempts to secure the adoption of a reform policy had come from below and not from above. Although the Reform Edicts of 1898 were signed by H.I.M. Kwang Hsü, they were the product of the brains of Kang Yu-wei and his disciples. The feudal lords in Japan had cooperated with their Emperor in modernising the system of government. The official class in China, almost to a man, opposed the Emperor's policy, with the result that his well-meant endeavours only resulted in disaster to himself and to the reform party. Nevertheless, granted that the Empress-Dowager did not show her usual perspicacity in failing to recognise the difference of

conditions in Japan and China, the effort made by the Court to direct the reform movement from 1905 until the abdication in 1912 remains a monument to her genius. The programme of reform decided upon by the Court evidenced a keener knowledge of the political limitations of the Chinese people than was shown by the men who were responsible for the drawing up of the Provisional Constitution promulgated in March 1912. The Court proposed to accomplish in nine years much less than these men sought to do in a few weeks. The policy of the Manchu Dynasty was gradually to fit the people to wield political power, and to create a general political consciousness before permitting the exercise of political rights. The mistake of the rabid republicans who secured temporary power in 1912 was the endeavour unwisely to shorten political gestation.

The Empress-Dowager, in September 1906, issued an edict definitely promising the grant of a constitution. In this edict the creation of an Imperial Parliament was foreshadowed, but as a distant goal to which advance was to be made with due deliberation. In the following year Provincial Councils were constituted. Strict limitation was made of the subjects they could discuss; and in particular an interdict was placed upon interference with national, as distinct from provincial, questions. The Empress-Dowager died before these Councils came into existence, but they met in 1909 and continued to perform their functions until abolished in March 1914. They soon showed that they were by no means disposed to limit their discussions to provincial matters, and, in spite of an express command that they should not concern themselves with purely political questions, they inaugurated a campaign for the speedier summoning of the National Assembly, a body that was to function until the convocation of an Imperial Parliament. In this campaign they were successful; and the National Assembly met in 1910, instead of a year later. It is not necessary to follow in detail the endeavour to carry out the Manchu programme; it is sufficient to record that the intention was to bring into existence local councils in cities, towns and villages; to codify the civil, criminal and municipal laws; to submit estimates of revenue and expenditure to the National Assembly; to reform the

system of taxation and the judicial system; and to institute compulsory education. When this nine years' programme had been completed, it was assumed that the people would have become sufficiently educated politically to take a minor part in the government; that is to say, they could be allowed to send a certain number of elected representatives to the Imperial Parliament. The Emperor, however, was to retain sovereign power. Like the Emperor of Japan, he was to be an absolute monarch exercising his absolute rights within the limits of the constitution.

The promise to the Chinese people of a constitution that would, at all events theoretically, leave the absolute sovereignty of the dynasty unimpaired, was regarded by those who were anxious for the institution of representative government and constitutionalism on Western lines as Dead Sea fruit, more especially when the Prince Regent appointed members of the Imperial Clan to most of the high ministerial positions. The possession of a little more imagination, however, would have enabled the malcontents to foresee the inevitable dawn of the day when the dynasty would be compelled by pacific, but irresistible, pressure to surrender even its nominal absolutism into the hands of a people grown capable of governing itself. As they were not so blessed, the revolution of 1911-12 scourged China and left her its legacy of woe. During the revolution, in a last frantic effort to appease the people, the Manchus offered a constitution definitely limiting the sovereign's power, but it was too late. Had the offer been accepted, it is possible that a system of constitutionalism would have been gradually developed in China, and that the year 1916 would have found the people enjoying most of the reforms set out in the Manchu programme.

The abdication of the Manchu sovereign left China in much the position in which a ship would be if a portion of the crew had mutinied against the captain, another section equally strong had espoused his cause, and a deadlock, arising from the inability of either to win success, had been ended by the captain voluntarily agreeing to resign on condition that he was accorded the treatment due to a first-class passenger. The Edicts of

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