LIFTING THE CURTAIN IN CHINA.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 7, 24 August 1911, Page 3

LIFTING THE CURTAIN IN CHINA.

Dr. E. J. Dillon, in the “Contemporary .Review,'’ brings together tho main facts in the extraordinary pre-sent-day situation in China. “China is waking up,” ho says. “Her people are 1 'coming alert and active. As soon as the ethnic torrent, penned in for ages, is in movement, elements may be brought to the surface of- which we, in Europe had no knowledge. Surprises of a serious nature may also bo in store

for us. One thing, however; we may

rest absolutely assured of: what will eventually ta!a\ place will differ toto cnclo from what the best European authorities anticipated. Already the curtain has-boon lifted, and tho prologue to the play is beginning. “It was originally fixed by the late Dowager Empress for tiic year 191.7, but the nation is grown impatient and will not brook needless delay. Constitutionalism, and tho acute nationalism which is so often one of its concomitants, are spreading throughout the Empire. The central government is pithless and can make no stand against the ‘reform’ movement which, in one of its aspects, is also an anti-

foreign movement.' “Tho Pekin authorities promised to convoke a constitutional Chamber not later than the year 1917, and meanwhile they created in every province a special consultative Diet. But one of the first acts of this body was to petition the Throne to summon the representatives of the nation at an earlier date. The reply was negative Nothing daunted ,the reformers inaugurated an elaborate propaganda throughout tho country in favour of their demands. Vast numbers joined the movement. In Juno last a new petition was drafted, presented, and rejected as, before. Fiery speeches inflamed the passions of the ‘ref moists,’ which manifested themselves in weird forms. A third petition was drawn up, and while speeches on the subject were being delivered the delegates of students’ organisations bioka into tho Hall of Deliberations and addressed those present in the wild language of passion.

A Biosrl'Stained Petition. “By way of enhancing the impression produced, ‘ they resorted to the aid of self-mutilation; the first of the students cut off one of his fingers; the second drove a dagger through the palm of,.his hand; a third was about to slice open his abdomen, but was hindered. He contrived, however, to cut. out a piece of muscle from his forearm. His..bipod spurted out on tho floor and besplashed the petition. /The assembly ’was moved to frenzy. A resolution was unanimously passed to present the petition to tho Regent at once, and to 'present it with stains of human gore upon it. , Radicalism in China. “The 1 provincial delegates , there-, upon wended towards the Palace in' a body. Tho Regent happened just then to be in the inner apartments dm which accents stringently prohibited. But. .petitioners cried out tumultuously for some person in authority, causing such an uproar and keeping it up so persistently all night, pamping in the Palace, that at last an official to whom the name of Home Secretary is giycn, voluteered. to 'deliver tho petition to the Regent. After a repetition of scones which are compared to those that were enacted at Versailles , a,t... the outset of the French Revolution, tho Prince Regent caved in. Ho promised to pass on the document to the Senate and ask that body to report to him on tho subject. .

“Now the Senate, which was convoked for the first, time about seven months ago, is the most conservative public body in the Chinn of to-day. One-half of its members were nominated by the Prince Regent, who selected them from among State dignitaries, trusty officials, princes of the blood, and ‘men enlinent in letters and science. The other half consists of individuals chosen by the provincial councils, whose members have to possess a very high property qualification. Yet 'that conservative assembly inaugurated its labours last year by complaining of the : inadequacy of the rights it possesses and asking for more. Chinese, Nationalism. : “In consequence oh its Radical propensities and subversive influence, the Regent dissolved it at the end of three months, but the Senate evaded the law by appointing a permanent. Committee of a number of its own members to sit in Pekin in the intervals of the sessions. In the matter of this petition the Senate, in lieu of supporting the Government, upheld the demands of the reformists, and the Regent felt constrained to issue an edict promising to convoke a constitutional Chamber" 'in the year 1913 instead of 1917, but be declared as an offset that it would be absolutely impossible to frame an electoral law and obtain a list of persons entitled to vote before 1913.

“Willi' the ‘recent example of Russia, Turkey,-••ami even Persia before our eyes, it is : natural to assume that whatever else the Chinese Parliament may he, it will assuredly he patriotic. And Chinese patriotism will he interpreted by Europeans to mean the persecution of the foreigners. The cultured nations of the world want a people of customers in the Ear East, not a people of competitors. Competition of trade and industry, oven in China itself, will be set down—nay, is already being set down-—as a crime against civilisation. No wonder the Chinese are indignant. But the culture-hearing nations have only themselves to Maine for what is coming. It was they who insisted peremptorily on China joining the ranks of civilised nations, and it was they who at. the same time systematically put upon her indignities which oven barbarians would not brook. Hav-

ing seen these things with my own eyes in China, 1 can speak of them at first hand.”