THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, APRIL 15, 1916. DOMESTIC STRIFE IN CHINA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16205, 15 April 1916, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, APRIL 15, 1916. DOMESTIC STRIFE IN CHINA.

In the heated interest of our own desperate struggle for political freedom and progressive democracy, for the right of free nations to govern themselves in their own lands with-

out fear of tyranny or dread of

" rightfulness," it is inevitable that wo should overlook the domestic strife that is shaking China to its centre, a strife upon which turns the political future and possibly the social destiny of 400,000,000 human beings. While the Germans have been battering at Verdun and while the French, with their heroic defensive, are ensuring to ub that western civilisation shall be ruled by its democracies, not dominated by Prussian autocracy, Yuan Shih-Kai has been compelled to abjure the throne to which he proposed to lift himself and to acknowledge the permanence of the Chinese Republic whose champions have lighted the fires of revolt throughout the most populous country in the world. With our eyes fixed and our hearts centred on the war that is decuiir.g whether for us and for our children's children, to countless generations, life shall be worth living, it is difficult for us to estimate the meaning of this great Chinese movement or to gauge the full measure of its success. Yet it would be folly not to realise that any political revolution which fundamentally affects the organisation of a third of the human race must be fraught with influence to the whole world. Such a revolution may bring us nearer to some future Armageddon, of which the Pacific may be the centre and colour, not language, the key to allegiance; or it may make more possible a better understanding between Turanian and Aryan and the coming of the time when Law shall rule the nations,

whatever their colour, their language or their clime. In any case its influence must be potent, lasting and world-wide.

It is an easy confession for the most experienced and observant European to say that he really knows nothing of the Chinese.. The mere facts of China. and the Chinese can be learned, tabulated and memorised. It is the working of the Chinese mind that defies investigation and analysis. We know that in the valleys and plains of the rivers that pour eastward from the great central ranges of Asia the most ancient of living civilisations has bound into social organisation the most numerous of living peoples. We know that in China humanity has packed itself in the invariably pyramidic form of antique society, that at the base the standard of living has been reduced to a minimum compared to which a Spanish beggar ! lives in luxury, and that at the apex there is a wealth and prodigality which even American multi-million- 1 aires hardly rival. We know that the Chinaman carries with him to every land his racial peculiarities and his incomprehensible racial affiliations. We know of Chinese junks, and Chinese tea and Chinese jade and Chinese carvings, and a thousand other Chinese things. We do not know the Chinese thoughts, the Chinese ideals, the Chinese inspirations. We have only the faintest conception of what is seething and working, like yeast and ferment, in the hearts and minds and brains of the 400,000,000 fellowcreatures who are China. The uprising against Yuan Shih-Kai comes from this Chinese mind. It is an expression of the determination of the Chinese people that their China shall be moulded to their wishes, that the future shall be reached along the road of their desires.

To outward seeming the Chinese have never been republican. Their natural organisation is pre-eminently patriarchal in its character; their history is the history of kings and of; conquerors. Yet it is said that the | secret societies which distinguish the ] commercial, industrial, political and social activities of the Chinese have been evolved under the Manchu Emperors, who for several centuries and till the other day ruled in the Flowery Kingdom as alien conquerors. By means of these secret societies the Chinese appear to have been gradually divorced from their traditional reverence for the paternal monarch of their earlier national organisation. The secret societies, assuming a revolutionary form, finally overturned the- Manchu dynasty and a "republic" was formed in 1911. This Chinese Republic was in no way democratic as we understand democracy; it knew' nothing of adult. suffrage, equal j electoral districts, or vote by ballot, not to speak of the Hare system or preferential voting; it simply based authority upon an assembly of "notables" and representatives of notables," whom we may reasonably suppose were very generally the leaders and chiefs of the societies with one or other of which every man of Chinese birth or extraction appears to be affiliated. In 1915, Yuan Shih-Kai—moved by patriotism, according- to his friends by ambition, according to his enemiesasserted that the republican form of government was not satisfactory to China, and " consented" to wear a crown. This was the signal for a renewal of the "republican" movement, which speedily secured the support of many leaders upon whom Yuan Shih-Kai had relied. He had been shrewd enough to provide, in "accepting" the throne that he should continue to act as president until his coronation. There has been no coronation. Consequently he is not deposed, but has declared that he will continue the republic. Whether this will calm the revolutionary outbreaks in the Chinese provinces remains to be seen. It is possible that as the allies refuse to make terms while Prussian militarism is dominant at Berlin, the Chinese republicans may refuse to make terras while Yuan Shih-Kai is dominI ant at Pekin.