YUN-SHI-KAI'S NIECE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCIV, Issue 14660, 30 January 1912, Page 3

YUN-SHI-KAI'S NIECE.

ROMANTIC CAREER OF GIRL AGITATOR. CHIX.VS FUTURE. To-day one of the lending women among tho revolutionaries in China (says the "Daily News" of Deo. 15) — 3irs. Chang, a niece of t.be- redoubtable Yuan-Slii-Kai himself—will leave England for her native land in order to resume her political work. Thou ah little more than a. girl in years Mrs. Cluing has lonir been an active agitator against the Manohu Dmaiitv. "and her story., as she told .t Inst night to a representative of "The Dailv N"ws," lias n charming flavour of" Eastern idealism. A little lady, with a broad alabaster forehead, keen black eves, and a ifiiguIr.rly sensitive month, her age 22. and l'.cr manner daintily' refined —such is tho revolutionary whom Yuan-Ski-Kai has deigned to recognise as a force that has in he reckoned with in contemporary polities. "One of my girl friends was bow headed three years ago for helping to p.an the assassination of a afanchu ■ governor; Ave were fellow-siudents in Japan," slie said, with an inscrutable smile. -ilrs. Chans; comes of a fine stock. Ilor grandfather was the famous General Chang-ehin-woo, win fought on the Government side in the abortive Tai-ping rebellion, snd her fnrher is tho well-known poet and ex-judge, Pao-tsu-woo. It was Chang-chin-woo who, adonting Yuan-Shi-Kai as his eon, developed that stntesman-sqldier'E gifts and helped to place U'im on the highest pinnacle of power in tho Empire. According to Chinese custom. Yiinn-Sln-Kai thus stands in tho reilationsh'ip of an uncle to Mrs. Chaj-.g. •" When I was a verv ittic girl mv father dedicated me, ' together with my s ster. who is. novr studying for a doctor's decree at Hong Kong, to the cause of liberty," she said.' "H-o l)!.d peiit : oncd the T>owagor-Euipress ; to abdicate, and for that offence had [ been compelled to resign his offfco as a. judge. Thereupon l:e wroto a lon^ | pcem to liis daughters. Let me rej peat a few stanzas." "In a musical Mrs. Chan;; ! recited the opening lines of the Chij n£se vers'*™ of the poem Roughly trans 1 :) led, they ran:

Your father. being a follower of Moneius (one of the Chinese- sage's), Has asked the ruler to do a •.•■rr hard thing. Do not you imitate your father, for he only speaks Did does not act. EUROPEAN models. After arguing at great length on the usefulness of tliis proceeding, the poem closes; , | "There are. two women in the West j who must be your exemplars. They are Madame Roland and Joan D'Ajv." "We- have done our best to obey our father." said Mrs. Chang, simply. Refore the age of fifteen the' budding revolutionary Was well acquainted with the ivories of Mill. Spenejr, and other Western economists, whose -works liare ten translated into Chimse. had been thoroughly instructed hi 'the events and moral of the French Revolution, and was acquainted with mu;h of the native revolutionary 'iterauire. In her fifteenth year she was writing leaders for a Shanghai paper, and in the company of her father meetings of a very advanced political character in the same city. The two brothers, Pao-tsu-woo, !he ixiet, and Yuan-Shi-Kai, the soldier", having drifted far apart in matters of op : uion, seldom met, and the girl only saw her uncle once. "His memory remains with me," she said, " more as that of a warlike spirit tlian of a man. At the age 'of fifteen I -was sent to -Taaan to studv. and there -wrote a little book entitled ''Jsu-yu Tsong' (.'The Liberty Bell'), which circulated in my native "country, besides being very active in what must be called, I siippcise, plotting to overthrow the Manehu dynasty. Soon Yuan-Shai-Kai began to press me by letter and telegram, and through my fam-Jy, to return to China and take charge of a school in the province of Chili, of which he was then Virerov. 1 have always steadfastly refused, however so much as to see him, believing him to bo an onemv of true liberty and of the future Cliinese Republic." In Japan the eirl student met her future husband. Mr. Chang, who haa now been studying for some time at Aberdeen University, .md is a First Prizeman in International Law. FATE OF HER FATHER.

One of her first cares upon reaclung China will be to inquire .is to the safety of the aged poet, her father, who 13 believed to bo ahut up with a body of advanced revolutionaries in the city of Nanking. Mr 3. Chang holds vorr decided views upon the present political situation. Her uncle she regards as the arch enemy—an able and probably sincere reformer, but constitutionally" unfitted to play a useful part in a free State. " Yuan-Shi-Kai," ;bo declared, ";a a soldier, not a statesman, or even a politician. Plis ideal is a limited monarchy, because he believes that under such a system his popularity with thearmy -would give him the power of an autocrat. As an autocrat Lo would no doubt, introduce many sweephin- reZ forms, but the Chinese- "people would not be free. I firmly 'le'ieve that no Parliament would bs ihle to control h:s actions.

• Nevertheless if, as iho outcome of t.ie present conference, rw should abandon the Mant-hi-s and come ever to the Rebuh'x-an side, hk povularitv '.s su-li tlmt he wnnld nndouM'-dlv be elected Ch'.:ia ; s first Pr-rsMent. "Tie Republicans are anvils to prevent such a cntastrenhe. We are united I helieve. in snoucrt of Dr. Sun Vat Sen. who. with Yum-Shi-Kni -ant of the 6eld. would be the incv'toble man for the position.''

In anv event Mrs. Chang intends to devote herself la-go'.v to educational work among the women of Chini. beliermg that only bv laising the status of women in the Euipre can real and steady progreiss be secured.