Mr. Archibald R. Colquhoun contributes a striking article to Wednesday's
Morning Post on the career, aims, and influence of Yuan Shi-Kai, the Viceroy of Chihli and Generalissimo of the Northern Army. Yuan Shi-Kai, who is only forty-five, has a record of administrative and military achievement all the more remarkable in that he began his official career without a regular degree. Although progressive in his views, he is accused of having betrayed the Reformers who approached him in 1898, and of engineering the coup ergtat which resulted in the practical deposition of the Emperor. Yet while securing and retaining the confidence of the Empress, he has never deviated from his policy of promoting the national efficiency of China by the adoption of modern, and especially Japanese, methods. He discountenanced and held aloof from the "Boxer" movement as premature and ill-advised, but has since been given a free hand in the training of his army on Japanese lines, and is now generally regarded by his countrymen as the hope of China and the chief promoter of her material renascence. Mr. Colquhoun's estimate of Yuan Shi-Kai is entirely con- firmed by the Pekin correspondent of the Malin, who dis- counts Prince Ching's assurances of Chinese neutrality, on the ground that the man who exercises real influence and power is not Prince Ching, but the Viceroy of Chihli. Even the Dowager-Empress, it is asserted, could scarcely resist a movement in favour of Japan headed by Yuan Shi-Kai with his forty thousand well-drilled and well-equipped troops.
