YUAN-SHI-KAI.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16098, 11 December 1915, Page 4 (Supplement)

YUAN-SHI-KAI.

THE MAN OF DESTINY. WILL HE BE EMPEROR? In an interesting character sketch of Yuan-Shi-Kai, the President of the Chinese Republic, who has.been spoken of as the likely emperor in the event cf a monarchical system of government being restored, a writer in a London paper, who has known the President for many years, says : — "In England Yuan-Shi-Kai might have been a Kitchener or a Talmerston— straightforward, hard-hitting, emphatic; in Germany perhaps a Bismarck, man tinged with cynicism and full of contempt for other people's opinions ; but because he lives in China he has become Yuan-Shi Kai. which is an extraordinary mingling of iron resolve and marvellous suppleness. It is, indeed, something of a marvel to find in the same man a straightforwardness almost unknown among Orientals, combined with a capacity for political chess-playing sufficiently great to beat any European statesman of to-day just as easily as Talleyrand could beat those of his generation. This is no idle praise ; it is stern ... t. lie is not a verv big man physically, but he is thick-set. with very determined featuresa Chinese bulldog, in fact. His wide-open- eyes watch the Questioner closely, but never craftily; yet it is well to understand from the "outset that those eyes are seeking both to understand the question thoroughly and to discover precisely what lies behind it—un art very imperfectly known in Europe, although lawyers think they possess it. When Yuan-Shi-Kai lias got the meaning and the motive—which he does ;.s rapidly as a dog snaps up a bone—he answers" at once bluntly and determinedly: and then. settling himself, waits patiently for the next bone. He can work through a whole carcase of questions without the slightest sign of fatiguehe sits there squarelv and finishes you off until the last bone is "gone. The thine is immense and fascinating, a new experience in a world of worn-out experiences, something to be remembered for a long day by those who have matched wits against him. Planning and Plotting. " And just as the man is like this when he is passive— that is when he allows somebody else to take the lead—so he is when he is originating, organising, directing, planning, plotting. He is full of energy and resourcefulness, a very glutton for work. It is on absolute record that during three months of the revolution he worked twenty hours a day. noting every telegram and despatch that came in or 'went out; keeping every thread between his own fingers, adding new ones continually, and yet leaving nothing at ,all to his subordinates save mere clerical work. Nevertheless, the man is physically extraordinarily lazy. Like all "On-.-rtals, he feels not the slightest need fc, ai.r sort of exercise or fresh air. Siire the attempt on his life he has gone out as seldom as possible, and his sedentary life has now so completely won him that he always goes upstairs in a sedan-chair borno by four bearers! Even to ma. * 3riii;i of the old school this looks like arrving ease a little too far." Share in the Revolution. Proceeding. the writer says :—" To what extent did this man of all others aid and abet the 'ate revolution ? Obviously it is too soon to write the history of the sensational changes which have "come in China, and to assign to each personality his proper place. Years must elapse before the actual truth concerning many things can be known—in -fact, it may be here surmised that the truth can never bo known about certain things. Still, this much can he. said : YuaivShi-Kii. as a patriotic Chinese from first to last, was determined to be on the side of law and —and a stable central Government. Recalled to power on October 14, 1911 — four days after the Wuchang outbreak— from banishment in which he had lived for two and a half years—a banishment inflicted upon him because 'of the hatred of the Prince Regent (brother of the unfortunate Emperor Kuang-Hsu), he evidently decided from the beginning that he would guide events and at the same time allow them to propel him upwards. Ambitious and far-seeing, patriotic yet revengeful, he could not have had much love for the Manchus, . though, undoubtedly he loved the pomp and majesty or the Imperial Court, and believed the Imperial conception to be the crowning achievement of Chinese civilisation.

" Placed thus on the horns of a dilemma ; wishing to save the Throne and yet to •end the Manchu autocracy; surrounded by plotters and partisans, his was no easy role to play; and yet he played it in a masterly manner. He was aware, for instance, from the beginning that on the Manchu side there was a plot within a plotthat is, that a strong section of the Imperial clan, led by the reckless commander of the Imperial bodyguard, Prince Tsai-Tao, desired the fall* of the child Emperor and the Regent, so that they themselves might seize the Throne. He was also aware that on the revolutionary side there were very differ parties, with very different ideals. It was necessary to play all these conflicting interests as an angler plays heavy trout, exhausting the biggest and strongest by his artifices. That is precisely what he did from first to last, and that is why he is President of the Republic. Value of a Railway. " The best history of the revolution in ' China from i v © purely politico-military standpoint can be written by a simple description of everything • that" took ! place, along the Hankow -Pekin railway—that 600-mile feeler of steel that stretches down from the northern capital to the great Yangtsze valley. From the moment of the entraining of the two divisions of the Imperial army, hastily summoned from the manoeuvres on which they wero actually engaged, to the Wuchang armistice which followed the capture of Hanyang, Yuan-Shi-Kai used the long steel feeler much as an angler uses his rod. He played with everybody from start to finish. Undoubtedly the revolution could have been completely crushed within one month, or perhaps even less, but Yuan-Shi-Kai knew that that would have menat no settlement at all. A worse explosion was bound to occur if the Manchus. remained omnipotent, even in name; Yuan-Shi-Kai worked to leave nobody omnipotent, and perhaps has succeeded only too well. Wuchang could have been captured the day after the taking of Hanyang; nobody has dared to explain why it was not captured. Nankin need never have fallen —Yuan-Shi-Kai 's enemies say that he was at the bottom of that, too. There are even those who 6toutly maintain that the military revolt in Pekin on February 29 was engineered within the walls of his compound solely as an excuse to prevent him from proceeding to Nankin to swear fidelity to the Republic. But it is useless to make statements about such things; one can be sure of nothing to-day. Will He Climb Higher? " But will he climb liigher still, and assume the Imperial Yellow ? { do not know—l do not care to guess , nor does any man. But one thing for the time being seems certain —that so far from attempting the coup d'etat, which many already declare inevitable, if any is to be made, as usual Yuan-Shi-Kai will allow events to make that coup, being borne along the crest of the wave and landed high and dry above all danger. The. army may decree some fresh upheaval ; the army, when it is reorganised, may act much as the Turkish army acted when it marched into Constantinople. There is, of course, no valid reason why a peculiar type of —something like the French type— with a hole in the middle, showing where the Throne ought to — should not become definitely established in China ; the Chinese are sufficiently philosophic to accept any form of government. But if there is "to be a " second Empire." if the revolution is to prove only one act in a long drama, there is only one man living who can fitly take his seat on l the re-established Throne."