;
[B]
417
This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government,
C.
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[6031]
No. 1,
9150
RECE [February GE 12 MAR 07/
SECTION 1.
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.--(Received February 23.)
This
(No. 22.) Sir,
Peking, January 9, 1907. BY a special Decree published on the 30th December, 1906, the Empress- Dowager has commanded that the position of Confucius in the national Pantheon shall be raised, and that the "high sacrifice" shall be offered to his manes. places the worship of Confucius formally on the same basis as the seasonal sacrifices offered in the Temple of Heaven, and indicates that the Emperor will himself make the most reverent form of obeisance-three kneelings and nine prostrations--once a-year before the appropriate shrine, instead of the medium form-two kneelings and six prostrations once every ten years---which, I am informed, has been the practice heretofore.
I am assured by responsible Chinese officials that the main purpose of this Decree is to bring the large and unruly body of foreign-educated students, and especially those educated in Japan, under more effective control. The older officials are alarmed, with reason, at the tone and influence of these students, and are casting about for means to curb both, and the Court has been induced to believe that an exaltation of the national cult of the great Sage will help to place a moral restraint on the subversive tendencies of the rising generation.
No doubt the idea of a Chinese religion, which shall stand as high in native estimation as Christianity does in the West, is in the minds of the originators of the Decree, and I should myself be inclined to add, as another prompting motive, the desire to pacify the older generations of scholars, who are still the power in the land, and who must view the strides lately made by new men and new learning with real apprehension.
The Decree of the 30th December was followed on the 6th January by another, also issued by the Empress-Dowager, which orders 100,000 taels to be appropriated for the establishment of a University at Ch'ü Fu, the birthplace of Confucius.
I have, &c. (Signed) J. N. JORDAN.
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