THE CHINE SE REVOLUTION.
IT is indeed interesting—one almost thinks of it as a privilege—to be alive to watch the revolution in China which has brought about the abdication of the Manchu dynasty, after a domination of 267 years, and the proclamation of a, republic. The revolution, which affects a quarter of the earth's population, is surely one of the most portentous and surprising events in history. The first observation which occurs to us to make is how extra- ordinarily well both Yuan Shih-kai and Sun Yat-sen have managed the negotiations. We are assuming that the present difference of opinion between them will be settled, since they have shown so much goodwill hitherto. Yuan Shih-kai, till he found that his position was no longer tenable, strove to retain the monarchy in a constitutional shape. He was probably wise, for the theory of monarchical government is inherent in the whole Confucian philosophy, and he knew that an easy transition is always safer than a radical change. What proof was there that the Chinese could conduct their national life prosperously and happily under purely republican forms 2 Absolutely none. There- fore Yuan Shih-kai played the safer game. He suspected that what might seem an object of intellectual veneration to Cantonese students and philosophers might be a stumbling-block—a thing of ridicule—to millions of peasants who look up to the " Son of Heaven " as alone worthy to propitiate on their behalf the shades of the Imperial ancestors. Yuan Shih-kai felt, in fact, exactly like Burke when ho said : "I do not often quote my Lord Bolingbroke, but I agree with him when he says that he prefers a monarchy to a republic, because it is easier to engraft the advantages of a republic on a monarchy than to engraft the advantages of a monarchy on a republic." Sun Yat-sen, on the other hand, speaking from Nanking with the authority of an already established provisional republic behind him, was for republican government pure and simple. He and his followers have studied the Federal Constitution of the United States, and will be satisfied with little less than an imitation of it. These conflicting opinions might have led on without surprising us to a war of North against South more bloody than the civil war of North against South in the United States. But, happily for China, Yuan Shih-kai and Sun Yat-sen seem to be men capable of statesmanship and, above all, patriotic men who put the interests of their country above the personal satisfaction of pursuing an idea. They compromised.
Through all these days when Yuan Shih-kai has been indifferently suspected of scheming to satisfy himself and of striving to preserve for the Mancha dynasty its ancient powers and its infinite opportunities for corruption, he has really been wresting from the reluctant Empress Dowager and the princes the terms, on a basis of republicanism, that will be likely to reconcile North and South. Sun Yat-sen for his part has readily met Yuan Shih-kai half-way, and the result is the arrangement which has been made known in a series of decrees. The Chinese are conventionally spoken of as Orientals, but there is really nothing characteristic of what we should call Oriental methods in the Whig-like accom- modations of Yuan Shih-kai and Sun Yat-sen. Yuan Shili-kai, we know, is an opportunist, but he is evidently something a great deal more and better than that, and Sun Yat-sen has proved absolutely that he is no Jacobin. Whiggism, we hold, is the best foundation of politics, and we cannot help looking forward with some hopefulness to the astonishing experiment which is to be tried in China. when we find the leading men acting with Whig modera- tion. Nor can the praise we have given to Yuan Shih-kai and Sun Yat-sen be withheld altogether from the fallen Manchu house. There is an undoubted air of grace, and a very striking ability to save remnants of dignity in the edicts of abdication. While the Manchu dynasty has crumbled down into ruins the efficiency at Court seems wholly to have deserted the men and to have become the chief virtue of the women. The Empress Dowager, as the Times correspondent tells us, has exceeded all the princes in the skill with which she has made terms, with Yuan Shih-kai. We do not suppose that she has the preternatural shrewdness of the " Old Buddha," as the last Empress Dowager was called, but it is plain that she has great coolness in adversity, and keeps a good business head on her shoulders.
The position of the Imperial House will be very curious. The Emperor will not leave Peking, as was at first suggested ; there will be no flight to Jehol, as there was after the Boxer rebellion. The Emperor will live first in the Forbidden City and afterwards in the Summer Palace, and he will command the same honours that a foreign sovereign enjoys when visiting China. He will have an annual grant of 4,000,000 tads, which will later become dollars when the currency is changed. He will be known as the " Ma.ncliu Emperor," and he can have an Imperial bodyguard if he wishes fot it, but it must be chosen for him by the republic. His sacrifices to the Imperial ancestors will continue, but they will be made to the Emperors of the Chinese dynasty— the Ming dynasty—which preceded the Manchu conquest. All private property belonging to the Court will be respected. Manchu rank will continue for the present, and the Emperor's seal will be affixed to all patents of nobility. If an emperor thus generously treated vet anomalously placed—it is as though Louis XVI. had been retained for ceremonial purposes by the leaders of the French Revolu- tion—plays any useful part in the imagination of the people it might be found convenient to secure his successors in the same position. But this part of the scheme is left vague. The Times correspondent thinks that it is intended and implied that the title of Emperor shall not be hereditary. It is an extraordinary end to a proud dynasty. Yet the Manchus have deserved their fate. They lost their character and their energy ; they were quietly and uncon- sciously overcome in the course of two hundred years by the very people they had conquered (how curious, by the way, is this absorbing power of the Chinese—it affects even Europeans) ; and they became a parasitic class batten- ing on an honest and industrious nation. The Banner men became privileged and slothful beneficiaries instead of competent fighting men. The arts, which had marked the early years of the Manchu rule, lost their distinction. Nemesis is no doubt due. The Chinese are joyfully cutting off their pigtails—the emblem of their servility— reversing the process of Lord Bathurst, who is said to have cut off his pigtail—he was one of the last Englishmen to wear ono—as a sign of his grief when the Reform Bill of 1832 was passed.
If the doctrinaires of Western democracies had been congratulating themselves that the Chinese Republic will be a vast federation of pa,cificist States they must already be deeply disappointed. The new China is to be a military nation. There will be, in theory at all events, universal military service, and if the intention is only partially effected there will be an enormous army. We have little doubt that the new China means to defend her territory and her rights. The new spirit is largely a military spirit, and it will apparently be directed at first by Yuan Shih-kai, who is, above all, a soldier. The building of barracks in all directions, which is referred to in a book noticed elsewhere, is a very significant fact. We do not pretend to be dis- tressed at this outlook. Indeed, much the best thing for the peace of the world will be that China should be a strong man armed. The great commercial development and all the railway building which ought to take place under a wise and practical Government will excite cupidity. A weak China would be a tempta- tion to every nation in the world which has a taste for illicit annexation. There will be misgivings, of course, that the new President of a military republic will soon be aiming at dictatorship, but it is to be remembered that Sun Yat-sen, with all the southern revolutionaries behind him, will still be present to act as a check on Yuan It is very curious how the theory that a i democracy is non-military manages to survive among some people. No democracy—certainly not France or the United States—is anti-militarist ; and in China the move- ment towards democracy has been coincident with a movement towards a military awakening. " I sing democracy," says Walt Whitman. "An armed race is advancing." And that is truly the way of the world.
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