CHINA’S GREAT MAN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 90, 29 November 1911, Page 7

CHINA’S GREAT MAN.

Yuan- St. ih-Kai,tho man who recently declined to become the Prime Minister of China, has experienced strange turns of fortune during the last ten years. Ho was a provincial viceroy without influence and apparently without prospects of advancement when the late DowagerEmpress discovered him. This remarkable woman, who ruled China by the force of her own personality despite the supine inefficiency of the Manchu court, realised very, clearly that no member of the royal family could advance her work. She loosed around her for strong men to stand beside her and chose Yuan-shi-kai to be her principal officer. He proved a tower of strength and under his advice the empire was given a constitution and a body of young Chinese progressives was established at the seat of Government in Pekin. A modern army was brought into beilig under the personal direction of the ex-viceroy. Put the Dowager-Empress died before her work was completed and the Manchu party, inefficient and corrupt regained the supreme power. Yuan-shi-kai, the idol of the army and the trusted friend of the common people, was cashiered publicly humiliated and driven into retirement, the a hie administrators ho had chosen were dismissed from office and China was left in the hands of the men whose actions have produced the present rebellion. To-day VTian-sJu-kai finds himself elevated suddenly to a position of authority that appears to he practically a dictatorship. Ho is commander-in-chief of the army while the Manchu dynasty seems to have collapsed. He proposes to suspend hostilities against the rebels, we are told, and negotiate for peace. The announcement can only mean that he regards the old order as dead and is prepared to join hands with the revolutionary party in the creation of a new China on a constitutional basis. Yuan-shi-kai is a patriot as well as a soldier and he has an opportunity to become a very great figure in the history of the Eastern nations.