THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 1912. REVOLT AND ANARCHY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14933, 5 March 1912, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 1912. REVOLT AND ANARCHY.

Rumours and reports from various parts of China have given rise to the surmise that an appalling state of affairs exists wherever the authority of the Manchus has collapsed without being replaced by sufficiently powerful " Republican" rule. "A wall of ignorance exists between the myriads of human beings who make the great coastal plains and river valleys of China veritable warrens of humanity and the Western nations whose tentacles of intelligence only touch this region at a few isolated points—a wall far more effective in shutting out communication than was the famous engineering work raised by the old dynasty against the threatening incursion of the Manchus. We only know, in the vaguest way, that the Manchu authority has been struck down throughout the whole of the southern and central provinces of the Celestial Kingdom, and that in Pekin itself all pretensions have been abandoned by the Emperor and his Manchu advisers. But now and then- we obtain glimpses, as through rifts in a veil, of a red riot of anarchy and rapine following closely upon the heels of successful revolt. Countless millions are involved in this hideous welter of ungoverned lawlessness ; all the misery resulting from Manchu incapacity and mismanagement has been multiplied a thousand-fold by the disappearance of all governmental order and the outbreak of unbridled passions and unrestrained panic. Where the Western Powers—strong in martial \ equipment and in the instructive discipline which is always characteristic of confident intruders—touch China there has hitherto been comparatively little disorder, both Imperialists and Republicans having done' their utmost to prevent, in the ruthless Asiatic fashion, any cause for foreign intervention. But the wealth of Pekin has proved too strong a temptation to thousands cl the undisciplined Chinese soldiery, whose profession of Republicanism made the Empire impossible. They have turned upon it with an energy they never displayed in the face of an enemy, and have "looted" with a thoroughness unequalled since the conquering entry of the Manchus. The anarchic impulse has extended to other cities, . from which wholesale "looting" and burning by both soldiers and mobs is reported, and this we may safely regard as evidence of a very widespread state of affairs. The European Legations at . Pekin .are once more on guard,'

and European detachments are hastening to their assistance from the ports within reach. Thanks to wireJess telegraphy the Legations cannot again be cut off from civilisation, but they cannot be regarded as wholly safe until order ia re-estab-lished. And the question may be: who is to re-establish order in China? If the " Republic" does not speedily prove its capacity China must either drift back into a barbarism which may depopulate even that vast anthill or pass from the hands of the Manchu into the hands of other masters—Jap., Russian, or European.

However bad and oppressive tho government of a country may be — and of the Manchu government of China little good can be said— is undoubtedly better than no government at all. Indeed we may go further and say that any revolt which merely destroys a government and does not simultaneously replace it by an authority strong enough to enforce Jaw and order is one of the deadliest evils which can befall human kind. Those among whom the habit of self-government is inherent, who under the long established monarchical forms of Northwestern Europe have developed the consciousness, ~., that "Order is Heaven's first law," are often somewhat indifferent in theory to the danger of overturning established institutions, and point to the success of their occasional revolutions as proof of the folly of enduring tyrannical authority. But when we examine the political .upheavals of the Teutonic peoples we find that they are exceedingly superficial. The American Congress was an actual authority, when British rule was repudiated and in each of the original colonies was a self-contained system for the maintenance of order. The suspension of the monarchy by j Cromwell was not a domestic success, however much the foreign policy of the Protectorate gratifies the national pride of Englishmen and the final fate of the impossible Stuarts was a Parliamentary action which nearly replaced them by the more amenable Guelphs. In our own time, Norway has renounced the Swedish partnership without disturbing her national organisations in the slightest degree. Whatever else may be said of Democracy otherwise constitutional monarchy— it must be recognised that it is plastic enough to submit to great political changes without endangering order. But the moment we leave the peoples who live in, or have sprung from, North European stock we find that political changes are almost invariably the result of revolt, and as usually accompanied by anarchy. Among the LatinAmerican republics, Mexico is a present instance of this rule. Portugal is still suffering for her antimonarchical outbreak. In Russia the great rebellion against the Tsarocracy—for which as little can be said as for the Manchus—notoriously failed because it brought an unendurable anarchy in its train. If we think of what 'India would become were British rule withdrawn it is'difficult to understand how any Englishmen can be so foolish as to encourage Indian sedition, regarding the question solely from the point of view of the Indian people. Even among ourselves, in that wellordered civilisation which has brought domestic peace and judicial equity to a height unimagined before and unknown elsewhere, we may easily overestimate our racial and national capacity for enduring great political and social changes. Our safety has lain in the strong conservatism which counterbalances and steadies our - constant tendency towards what we term progress, but which is only progress where it has been shielded from a hysterical desire to change. We may safely say that change in itself is dangerous because imperilling those great vested interests which are essential to the existence of every individual in the community and that all political, social and industrial changes should therefore be carefully and cautiously considered, lest in grasping at the shadow of what may be we lose the substance of what is.