A Delayed Political Dawn in China.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXV, Issue 10017, 7 December 1908, Page 4

A Delayed Political Dawn in China.

Fully two years have come and gone since, "in obedience to the instructions of the Empress Dowager," his Imperial Majesty Kwang Su promulgated at_ Peking a decree pledging a constitutional government to his subjects. Several weeks afterward the Wai-W'u-Pu informed the diplomatists in the Chinese capital that a parliament and a responsible ministry would "exist perpetually" as soon as the administrative system had been reformed and the army reorganised. Last November, however, came an edict informing the Chinese that a representative parliament and a responsible ministry had been found "impracticable,'' although some sort of imperial assembly under the presidency of a royal prince would be called into being. Xow comes news from Peking that a constitutional system, "including a ministry,' is shortly to be created. These conflicting announcements indicate to the Vossisohe Zeitung (Berlin), which keeps in close touch with Chinese affairs, that the reactionary mandarins around the throne are having' the severest struggle with the progressive element led by Yuan-Shi-Kai. The last-named statesman is accused by his enemies of keeping his troops within a relatively short march of the capital, that he may not be caught unawares when the aged' Dowager Empress dies at last. "It may he that to-morrow's dispatches will announce the postponement of the constitutional scheme indefinitely, from which circumstances the world could only infer that the reactionaries have triumphed again." Yuan-Shi-Kai has succeeded in winning the royal approval for his pet scheme of provincial assemblies, Ghi-Li would, unless the Empress Dowager changed her changeable mind again, have a legislature of some hundred and fifty members in the near future, Hunan would possess another of eighty or so, and lower Manchuria would secure fifty law-makers all to itself.

The constitutional question would have been settled long ago, says the Paris Matin, were it not for the intrigues in regard to the succession. There are now no less than four candidates for the dignity of heir apparent to Kwang Su, the Empress Dowager inclining now to one and again to another. The mandarins have ranged themselves on various sides, every other question sinking into insignificance beside this one. Yuan-Shi-Kai has, in the opinion of this French daily, secured a great personal triumph in the edict of the month. It seems practically certain that his influence will tell in the drafting of the constitution, a fact- which speaks volumes for the enlightened character of the system to be set up. That- a constitution 'will ultimately emei-ge and be set going seems certain to the London Standard, which indulges in these optimistic reflections: "It need not be imagined that an exact imitation of the parliamentary systems evolved in the West is contemplated. Indeed, educated Chinamen protest that they need only go back to their own traditions to find a precedent for party government in all its aspects. In an interview article lately published in one of our reviews, a young Chinaman pointed out that during the Sung dynasty, which flourished eight- or nine centuries ago, a Radical and a Conservative party held office in turns under responsible prime ministers —a happy state of things which was only brought t<r ah end by the Mongol invasion. The Ming emperor dispensed with prime ministers, and suppressed the freedom of political associations; and the Manchus were even less inclined to countenance progressive politics. But ever since the war be-t-ween China and Japan the demand for constitutional rights has been pressed with increasing persistence. At- present, it seems, there are three parties in the state: the Constitutional Monarchists, who acknowledge the Viceroy Yuan-Shi-Kai as their leader; the Revolutionary party,. which is rather in the shade: and the Constitutional Democrats, who differ from the other two in opposing centralisation in the Government."