chus from power and in founding a Republican régime. The factor which chiefly contributed to this success was undoubtedly the weakness of the Manchu dynasty and of the Imperial Clan, who, hated by the Chinese and without sufficient resources of their own, were utterly unable to offer any real resistance to the rebellious provinces of the south, the loyalty of their troops being uncertain, and any spirit or gift of leadership among themselves having disappeared with the passing of the great Tzu Hsi in 1908. But it is a mistake to imagine that the idea of a Republican form of Government in place of the centuries-old, autocratic, semi-divine Monarchy, was something that had never been mooted before and was entirely unknown to the Chinese. To the great majority, no doubt, it was, if known at all, something strange and hardly intelligible, as it still is. But in the south, especially on and near the coast, it had been familiar for some time; among the possibilities of the future it was not unknown even to the "Throne." Fourteen years ago, after the coup d'état by which Tzu Hsi smashed the reform movement that had been patronized by the Emperor Kuang Hsu, the then Viceroy of Canton stated in a memorial to her that among some treasonable papers found at the birthplace of Kang Yu-wei, the leading reformer of the time, a document had been discovered which not only spoke of substituting a Republic for the Monarchy, but actually named as its first President one of the reformers she had caused to be executed. It must be admitted, on the other hand, that the idea has been imported into China comparatively recently; the Chinese language contains no word for republic, but one has been coined by putting together the words for self and government; it must be many years before the masses of the Chinese-the "rubbish people," as Lo Feng-lu, a

former Minister to England, used to call them have any genuine understanding of what a republic means.

The Manchus were in power for nearly two hundred and seventy years, and during that period there were various risings, some of a formidable character, against them and in favor of descendants of the native Ming dynasty which they had displaced; powerful secret organizations, such as the famous "Triad Society," plotted and conspired to put a Ming prince on the throne; but all was vain. It had come to be generally believed that the race of the Mings had died out, but a recent dispatch from China speaks of there still being a representative in existence, who possibly might give serious trouble to the new republic. In any case, for a long time past the Mings had ceased to give the Manchus any concern; the pressure upon the latter came from outside the empire, but that in its turn reacted profoundly on the internal situation. The wars with France and England had but a slight effect on China; though the foreign devils beat it in war, it yet despised them; the effect of the war with Japan, in 1894, was something quite different, beginning the real awakening of China and imparting life and vigor to the new reform movement which had its origin in Canton, the great city of the south, whose highly intelligent people have most quickly felt and most readily and strongly responded to outside influences. Regarded by the Chinese as at least partially civilized, the Japanese were placed in a higher category than the Western barbarians, but as their triumph over China was attributed to their adoption of Western military methods and equipment, the more enlightened Chinese came to the conclusion that however contemptible the men of the Western world were, the main secret of their success, as of that of Japan, was open enough, and also

that Western learning and modes of government and organization must be studied and copied, as Japan had studied and copied them, if the Celestial Empire was to endure. It was a case on the largest scale of self-preservation, and some part, at least, of the truth was glimpsed by the Throne itself.

But China was, and in spite of recent developments still remains in most respects, an intensely conservative country, and the reform movement encountered from the start the most determined opposition. The Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi had handed over the reins of government to the Emperor Kuang Hsu, a young prince of good intentions but of feeble health and no great strength of character, unfitted, as events soon proved, to control the empire in these critical times, but who had come to believe that reform was desirable, and was willing to try to give it effect. After consultation with Kang Yu-wei, whose learning had given him the title of the Modern Sage, Liang Chi-chao, the editor of Chinese Progress, and other reformers whom he had summoned from the south, the Emperor issued various edicts which commanded the immediate adoption by his subjects of a great programme of reforms, affecting nearly every department of the State, but chiefly education and the army. These measures at once aroused the fiercest hostility amongst the conservative Chinese; the Dowager Empress, who had been watching what was going on, was appealed to, and the result was the coup d'état, the imprisonment and practical dethronement of the Emperor, and the cancelling of the reforming edicts. She thought he had gone too fast and too far, and, besides, she had satisfied herself, it is said, that the reform movement was largely anti-dynastic; what is certain is that almost from its inception the movement embraced two parties, one seeking a constitutional development

and the other a republican, and to her autocratic temper the former was hardly less objectionable, less "impious," than the latter. For two or

three years the forces of reaction were in the ascendant at Peking, and Western learning and everything that was Western or savored of reform were proscribed. The revolt of the conservatives against the Westernization of China found a militant expression in the anti-foreign Boxer rising, but its defeat and total collapse sealed the fate of the reaction and led Tzu Hsi to reconsider the situation. Parenthetically, it may be noted that southern China took little or no part in the Boxer outbreak, being kept well in hand by a strong and able Viceroy, the late Chang Chih-tung, himself a progressive, but of a conservative type.

Tzu Hsi made up her mind to reverse her policy, and henceforward sought both to conciliate foreigners and to make reforms, to the necessity for which she could no longer shut her eyes. Encouraged and supported by her chief advisers, amongst whom Yuan Shih-kai came into prominence, she took some tentative steps in the direction of reform, but the event, or rather series of events, which made her and the Chinese understand that not only was reform necessary but must take place as quickly as possible in the circumstances, was the Russo-Japanese

1908. The chief features of the latter portion of the reign of this wonderful woman were the spread of Western learning throughout a considerable part of the empire, the rise and amazing growth of a vernacular Press, the birth of something approaching a genuinely national spirit and sentiment notwithstanding the constant and ages-old rivalries and jealousies of the provinces, and, above all, the demand and ever-increasing agitation for a constitution and representative forms of government. Something, but not much, was heard of a republic while Tzu Hsi lived; before her death the principle of a constitution, with a national parliament and provincial assemblies, had been асcepted by the Throne-with reservations limiting the spheres of these representatives bodies, retaining the supreme power in the Throne, and in the case of the national parliament delaying its coming into existence for a term of years.

By Tzu Hsi's commands, the Throne passed at her death into the hands of a sort of commission; a child of two years of age, a nephew of Kuang Hsu, called Pu Yi, became Emperor under the dynastic name of Hsuan Tung; his father, Prince Chun, was nominated Regent, but was ordered to consult the new Dowager Empress, Lung Yu, the widow of Kuang Hsu, and to be governed by her decisions in all important matters of State. Prince Chun, amiable in disposition but weak and vacillating in character, and not always on the best of terms with Lung Yu, began well; one of his first acts was to assure President Taft, who had written entreating him to expedite reforms as making for the true interests of China, that he was determined to pursue that policy. Among those who had suggested reforms to Tzu Hsi, often going far beyond her wishes or plans, but who steadily supported her in all she did in that direction, the leading man

was Yuan Shih-kai; with the possible exception of Chang Chih-tung, the Viceroy of Hunan and Hupeh, mentioned above, Yuan Shih-kai had become the greatest man in China, and even as he had advised and supported Tzu Hsi, so he advised and supported Prince Chun at the commencement of the Regency. But the prince had received an unfortunate legacy from his brother, the Emperor Kuang Hsu, who, believing that Yuan Shih-kai had betrayed him to Tzu Hsi at the time of the coup d'état, had given instructions to Prince Chun that if he came into power he was to punish Yuan for his treachery. At the beginning of 1909 the Regent dismissed Yuan on an apparently trivial pretext, but everyone in China knew the real reason for his fall, and not a few wondered that his life had been spared. It is idle to surmise what might have happened if his services had been retained by the Throne all the time, but who could have imagined that so swift and almost incredible an instance of time's revenges was in store-that within barely three years Yuan Shih-kai would be the acknowledged head of the State, and Prince Chun and all the Manchus in the dust?

government of a

Representative kind started in 1909 with the establishment of provincial assemblies; elections were held, and assemblies met in most of the provinces. In the following year a senate or imperial assembly was decreed by an imperial edict; its first session was held in Peking in October of that year, and was opened by the Regent; one of the first things the assembly did was to memorialize the Throne for the rapid hastening on of reforms, and in response an edict was issued announcing the formation of a national parliament, consisting of an Upper and a Lower House, within three years. Under further pressure the Throne in May of last year abolished the Grand Council and the Grand Sec

retariat, and created a Cabinet of Ministers, after the Western model. But the agitation continued and went on growing in intensity; still it sought nothing apparently but a development of the constitution, and at least on the surface was neither anti-dynastic nor republican. An anti-dynastic outburst at Changsha, Hunan, in 1910, was easily suppressed, and certainly gave no indication of what was so soon to take place. So late as September of last year a rising on a considerable scale in the province of Szechuan was not anti-dynastic, but was declared by the rebels themselves to be directed against the railway policy of the Government. The best hope for China lies in a wide building of railways; the Chinese do not object to them, but, on the contrary, make use of them to the fullest extent where they are in existence; they do not wish, however, the lines to be constructed with foreign money, holding that such investments of capital from without might be regarded as setting up liens on their lands in favor of outside Powers-how far they can do without outside capital is another matter. Then the whole question of railway-building involved the old quarrel between the provinces and the central government-which is another way of saying that the provinces did not see why all the spoils should go to Peking.

A month after the rebellion in Szechuan had broken out, the great revolution began, and met with the most astonishing success from the very outset. Within a few weeks practically the whole of southern China was in the hands of the revolutionaries, and the Throne in hot panic summoned Yuan Shih-kai from his retirement to its assistance; after some hesitation and delay he came-but too late to save the dynasty and the Manchus, though there is no shadow of doubt that he did his best and tried his ut

most to save them. With Wuchang, Hankau, and Hanyang-the three form the metropolis, as it may be termed, of Mid-China—in the possession of the revolutionaries, and other great centres overtly disaffected or disloyal, the Regent opened the session of the national assembly, and it forthwith proceeded to assert itself and make imperious demands with which the Throne was compelled to comply-this was within a fortnight after the attack on Wuchang that had begun the revolution. On November 1st the Throne appointed Yuan Shih-kai Prime Minister, and a week later the national assembly confirmed him in the office; he arrived in Peking on the thirteenth of the month, was received in semi-regal state, and immediately instituted such measures as were possible for the security of the dynasty and the pacification of the country. But ten days before he reached Peking the Throne had been forced to issue an edict assenting to the principles which the national assembly had set forth in nineteen articles as forming the basis of the Constitution; these articles, while preserving the dynasty and keeping sacrosanct the person of the Emperor, made the Monarchy subject to the Constitution and the Government to Parliament, with a responsible Cabinet presided over by a Prime Minister, and gave Parliament full control of the Budget.

Here, then, was the triumph of the constitutional cause, and Yuan Shih-kai and most of the moderate progressive Chinese would have been well satisfied with it if it had contented the revolutionaries of the south, but from the beginning they had made it plain that they were determined to bring about the abdication of the dynasty, the complete overthrow of the Manchus, and the establishment of a Republican form of Government, nor would they lay down their arms on any other terms. In a short time Yuan Shih-kai saw that

the revolutionaries were powerful enough to compel consideration and at least partial acquiescence in their demands. It cannot be thought surprising that the proposed elimination of the hated Manchus from the Government was popular, yet it must seem remarkable that the revolutionary movement was so definitely republican in its aims, and as such achieved so much success. But while there had been little open agitation in favor of a republic, the ground had been prepared for it to a certain extent by a secret propaganda. The foreign-drilled troops of the army were disaffected in many cases and were approached with some result; the eager spirits of the party in the south, where practically the whole strength of the movement lay, formed an alliance with certain of the officers of these troops. No sooner was the revolution begun than a military leader appeared in the person of Li Yuanhung, a brigadier-general, who had commanded a considerable body of these foreign-drilled soldiers, and was supported by large numbers of such men in the fighting in and around Wuchang-Hankau. That the revolutionaries, who were chiefly of the student class, and not of the "solid" people of the country, were able to enlist the active co-operation of these officers and their troops accounts for the quick and astonishing success of the movement. And at the outset, whatever is the case now, many of the solid people-magistrates, gentry, and substantial merchants-also endorsed it.

Towards the end of November the revolutionaries captured Nanking, a decisive blow to the imperialists, and this former capital of China became the headquarters of a Provisional Republican Government. Soon afterwards, through the good offices of Great Britain, a truce was arranged between the north and south. Yuan Shih-kai was striving with all his might to re

tain the dynasty as a limited monarchy, but coming events cast their shadow before in the resignation of the Regent early in December. Negotiations went on between Yuan, who was represented at a conference held in Shanghai by Tang Shao-yi, now Premier, an able and patriotic man and a protégé of his own, and the revolutionaries, but the leaders of the latter made it clear that there could be no peaceful solution of the situation short of the abdication of the dynasty and the institution of some form of republic. At the end of December Dr. Sun Yat-sen, whose striking and romantic story is well known, was appointed Provisional President by Nanking; in January he published a manifesto to the people of China, bitterly attacking the dynasty, promising that the republic would recognize treaty obligations, the foreign loans and concessions, and declaring that it aimed at the general improvement of the country, the remodelling of the laws, and the cultivation of better relations with the Powers.

Meanwhile, the Dowager Empress and the Manchu princes had discussed the position of affairs with Yuan Shihkai, and the question of the abdication of the dynasty was under consideration, but though the situation was desperate there were some counsels of resistance. What finally made opposition impossible was the presentation to the Throne in the last days of January of a memorial, signed by the generals of the northern army, requesting it to abandon any idea of maintaining itself by force. This settled the matter. No other course being practicable, terms were agreed to between Peking and Nanking, and on February 12th imperial edicts, commencing for the last time with the customary formula, were issued from the capital giving Yuan Shih-kai plenary powers to establish a Provisional Republican Government, and to confer with the Provisional Re