THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1911. THE REVOLUTION IN CHINA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14819, 24 October 1911, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1911. THE REVOLUTION IN CHINA.

To Europe China is still largely a sealed book. In that vast territory in the East known as the Chinese Empire, with a history dating back to remote antiquity, and a teeming population counted by hundreds of millions, great movements may arise and pass away without even an echo of them reaching the outer world. We know little, or nothing of the thoughts of the Chinese people, of their outlook on life, of their mental progress, of their attitude towards the other, nations, of their national aspirations, or of those subtle fibres which run through their social fabric. To the majority of | foreigners they are a placid multii tude, content to live monotonous I lives of laborious toil, satisfied with a handful of rice to keep body and soul together, and steeped to the | lips in superstition and ignorance. Europe, however, is beginning to realise in a dim sort of fashion that its popular conception of China does I not exactly oquare with the actuali_ti.es of the case.. It is slowly learn-

ing that the untold hordes which constitute the Chinese nations are not altogether dumb driven cattle who exist mainly for the extortions of rapacious governors and an effete and corrupt dynasty. There are signs that a new spirit is spreading among the masses in China, and is producing in all directions ferment and unrest. The revolution which has broken out in the southern provinces is the latest manifestation of this change, and it is evidence of how little we know of what is passing in the minds of these strange people that it should have broken out without any premonitory warning A movement of this kind is not the result of a sudden impulse seizing a large section of the population. It has to be carefully prepared and engineered. Means have to be provided beforehand to enable it to count at least on some measure of success. The present revolt must have been hatching for a long time. That the authorities at Pekin were aware of what was going on is to be assumed, though it is now evident that they either ignored or failed to realise the strength and magnitude of the conspiracy. But no hint of impending trouble leaked out to the rest of the world. Even a correspondent usually so well informed as Dr. Morrison does not seem to have anticipated the revolt. The secrecy with which it has been planned is an ominous symptom, while the panic which has seized the Chinese Government as exhibited in their effort to recall the exiled Viceroy Yuan-shi-kai and the issuing of an Imperial decree promising an amnesty to all classed of rebels— an act of clemency unparalleled in the history of the dynasty—shows that it is of a character sufficiently serious to be regarded with grave alarm.

While the revolution concerns principally China herself or rather, perhaps, her Manehu rulers, it has a direct interest and importance for the world as a whole, and for no portion of it more than this quarter of the British Empire. It is impossible as yet to pronounce any definite opinion regarding the extent or true character of the revolt. The news which filters through Shanghai, of all places in the East the most prolific in unreliable rumours, cannot be accepted without considerable reserve. The probabilities, however, arc that it is even graver than it is represented to be, while it is certain to gain rapidly in force and numbers unless it meets speedily with a crushing reverse. The Chinese Government are in financial straits, and the army is small, badly equipped, and unreliable. Many of the Imperial troops are said to have gone over to the rebels. Moreover the antidynastic feeling is intense and widespread among the masses. The whole country is honeycombed with secret revolutionary societies. In these circumstances the prospects of an early suppression of the rebellion arc by no means reassuring. -' It was years before the Taiping rising was finally crushed by Gordon's Ever Victorious Army. There is no Gordon to-day, and no Ever Victorious Army; and the Chinese revolutionaries have learned many things since that great upheaval. It would, however, be a mistake to imagine that we are about to witness the break-up of the Chinese Empire. An Empire which has seen some of the great empires of antiquity pass away, which has preserved its existence while the glories of Egypt, of Babylonia, of Assyria have becomo only a name, is not easily destroyed. But what is likely to happen if the Manchu dynasty should fall is the awakening of China, intellectually, politically, commercially, and morally, and the throwing off of that stupendous incubus of corruption and sloth which has so long fettered her progress, sapped her energy, and weakened her life.