The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1906. REFORMS IN CHINA.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXX, Issue 11973, 17 September 1906, Page 4

The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1906. REFORMS IN CHINA.

Thobi who have watched the progress of affairs in the Far East of recent years must have been struck with the many signs China has shown of an awakening to the necessity for reforms. Interviewed at Auckland on Thursday last by a Star reporter, Major G. W. S. Patterson, the well-known gum merchant, who has just returned from a second trip to China, said he could see a great change wherever he went, and his business took him nearly to the centre of China, 2000 miles inland from Shanghai. There is no doubt, he said, that after slumbering for centuries, China is now awakening very rapidly. The object lesson of the Japanese-Russian war has not been lost on the Chinese, and no doubt they think what the Japs could do they also may yet accomplish, and drive the foreigner from their country. He rather fancied Japan was backing them up in this feeling. The most extraordinary change is in the matter of newspapers. When he was there a year ago there were hardly any papers. Now they are all over the place, which he thinks is a sign of "progress towards enlightenment. The* fact that many of the people cannot read is got over by having in booths at the street corners men who read the papers to all who choose to listen. The latest indication of an improved condition is the edict by the Emperor authorising a con-

stitution, which our cables informed us last week was received with great rejoicing at Shanghai. The travelling Chinese Commissioners, who were appointed some time ago to inspect and report upon the methods of government in vogue in foreign countries, have evidently been impressed by the principle of representation, and it may be presumed that the condition of affairs in Russia, which they visited in the course of their tour, supplied a vivid warning of the awful consequences of persisting in a regime of autocracy. In fact, the edict of the Emperor of China amounts almost to a slap in the face for the Czar, who, it is said, recently went out of. his way to telegraph to Peking urging the Emperor Kuang-hsu not to grant China a constitution. It is to be noted that the Emperor has always been and advocate of reform, and, indeed,, his tendencies in that direction induced the Dowager Empress, who is his maternal aunt, to forcibly snatch the reins of government from his hands and administer the Empire herself. Her antipathy to the reform movement was exemplified by the strong measures which she took to repress it, and which included the execution by flogging a few years ago of an unfortunate Chinese journalist who had dared to advocate the introduction of political freedom into China. Apparently the Dowager Empress has either changed her views or lost her authority. Nothing could illustrate the awakening of China so forcibly as this prospect of a Parliament sitting in Pekin with its members representing a population of 400,000 people, who have hitherto submissively accepted the rule of an autocratic Emperor. At present the government of China is carried on under a system which curiously resembles the plan of British rule in India. The country is divided into provinces, each of which is ruled by a Governor, responsible t6 the Emperor, and each province is then subdivided into prefectures, under prefects, while each prefecture is further split into districts, under the rule of magistrates. The Viceroy in India occupies very much the same position as the Emperor in China, being theoretically the head of the entire series of subdivisions, though in practice each of the subordinate officers largely controls his own territory. It may well be imagined that if China substitutes the Western system of Government by representative institutions for this Oriental plan of a political heirarchy, with an autocrat at the top, the change may have stupendous consequences not only for China but also for the world at large. However, it can hardly be supposed that such a change could be expected otherwise than gradually. And doubtless a very large proportion of the Chinese themselves would al first bitterly resent this abandonment of a time-honoured tyranny. The process of educating the people up to a recognition of their political duties and responsibilities is likely to take some time, but as China has already adopted European methods of military organisation there is no reason to suppose that she would prove incapable of eventually assimilating also the representative principle in politics. The example of Japan shows that the Oriental mind is not inherently antagonistic to the political principle- which the Western nations, after centuries of struggle, have laid down as the bedrock of just government.