A NEW EMPEROR

Wairarapa Age, 2 March 1934, Page 5

A NEW EMPEROR

HENRY PU YI ENTHRONED IN MANCHURIA. RULER OF “GREA,T MANCHU EMPIRE.” QUEER MINGLING OF ANCIENT & MODERN. SHANGHAI, March 1. Henry Pu Yi, last of the three hundred-year-old Ching Dynasty, who as a baby of three was called from his nursery to occupy China’s renowned dragon throne, and who a few years later was forced to abdicate when China became a Republic, was made Emperor of the newly-established Manchurian Empire at sunrise to-day, when he assumed the dynastic name of Em-

peror Kangteh. To signalise the enthronement a large number of political and criminal prisoners were amnestied and confiscated property was restored. To-day’s ceremonies make Pu Yi not only the newest ruling sovereign in the world, but the youngest new Emperor, being only 29, with a salary of five million dollars a year. Manchukuo will hereafter be known as “The Great Manchu Empire.”

Owing to her delicate health the Emperor's wife, whom Pu Yi married at the age of thirteen, did not participate in the ceremonies.

Lasting only twenty minutes, the religious ceremonies, which conferred on the youthful Manchu nobleman the title of “God’s Regent on Earth,” were notable for their simplicity, picturesqueness, dignity, and brevity, contrasting strikingly with the previous enthronement rites of the old Chinese Empire, which were long and elaborate, and marked with almost barbaric splendour.

To-day’s ritual was a curious intermingling of the ancient classical rites of the Chou Dynasty, dating back three thousand years, and modern practices in which automobiles, cameramen, aeroplanes, and wireless broadcasts figured conspicuously. Pu Yi, who wore gorgeous Manchu robes of dazzling red and blue, embroidered with golden dragons, orchids, and Chinese ideographs, presented a remarkable appearance against a drab background, as he proceeded to perform the rites which culminated in his ascension to the kingship. At daybreak the slender raven-hair-ed, bespectacled Chief Executive, emerging from an American limousine, ascended a special “Altar of Heaven” erected under a frozen firmament in the bleak desert far beyond the city, offering the Sun Goddess successive sacrifices and becoming the “Son of heaven,” the ruling sovereign of Manchuria ’s thirty-two millions. Most of Manchuria was still asleep when the new Emperor was preparing to wear the celestial mantle of rulership. No mundane noises "of human activities were permitted to mar the celestial quiet and solemnity of the Imperial ritual. All traffic and industry, communications by rail and road, were hushed, while thousands of Manchukuo soldiers guarded the route from the Imperial Palace to the sacrificial Altar of Heaven.

Except for a few high-ranking Japanese officials, no ontslflers were permitted to gaze as Pu Yi was making his solemn ministration to heaven. Civil rites followed later at the Chief Executive’s residence. A few foreigners were invited.

z POPULAR ENTHUSIASM POWERS ADVISED OF NEW REGIME. - (Received This Day, 1.35 a.m.) SHANGHAI, March 1. Mr. Henry Pu Yi, discarding the gorgeous robes of the Emperor Kangten and dressed resplendently in the uniform of a field-marshal, took his seat on the Throne, where, amid a hushed assembly, he took the Imperial seal and signed the Imperial rescript, which gave the final touch to the ceremony of installing him as Emperor. At twelve o’clock the populace received the official announcement of the ascension of the new ruler amid scenes of the wildest enthusiasm. The Foreign Minister has advised all other countries of the advent of the new regime, hoping earnestly for their goodwill.