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of them apparently commanded such a degree of support as to justify his selection, and a child Emperor had the advantage of being associated with no particular faction.
The selection has not, as was to be expected, given complete satisfaction, and considerable anxiety is still felt as to the attitude of a strong faction of Manchus, headed by his Excellency Tieh-liang, who, as President of the Army Board, has naturally to be reckoned with, but the Viceroys at Tien-tsin and Mukden, and the Commander-in chief of the Metropolitan province, all of whom have large bodies of troops at their disposal, are understood to be strong supporters of the new régime.
There is no irregularity, from a Chinese standpoint, in the choice of the successor, as there was in the case of the last Emperor, but the arrangement, although probably the best that could be made in the circumstances, is open to obvious criticism,
For a period of nearly fifty years the Manchu dynasty, whose early Emperors were men of strong character, has produced no Sovereign fitted to exercise personal rule, and ever since 1860, when China entered in regular diplomatic relations with foreign Powers, the control of affairs has been almost uninterruptedly vested in the hands of the Empress- Dowager. Two long minorities or Regencies are now to be followed by a third, which will probably extend over another period of fifteen years. But the situation is not without its compensating advantages. For the first time in history the supreme direction of Chinese affairs will be in the hands of a man who has seen something of foreign countries, who has come freely into contact with the outer world and will presumably remain in close touch with the life of the Empire. Prince Ch'un, who is now a man of about 26, went to Germany as a boy of 18 in 1901 on the mission of apology for the murder of Baron von Ketteler, and his experiences on that occasion must have impressed him with the power of the West and given him some insight into foreign customs. After his return, he took little part in public affairs until 1906, when he was appointed President of a Special Committee to examine the proposals made by the Imperial Commissioners who had been sent abroad in that year to study and report on the administrative systems of foreign countries.
In June 1907 he was created a member of the Grand Council, the Cabinet which meets daily in the presence of the Emperor, and the body on whose advice he will as Regent doubtless be guided in the conduct of State affairs. It is evident that a Regent who assumes power in such circumstances is likely to be more amenable to culightened influence than an autocratic lady whose life had been passed in the seclusion of the Palace, and as the Empress herself foreshadowed in her valedictory address to the Empire, the change of Government gives scope for the introduction of reforms. The Prince is favourably known to the foreign Legations and has, since his assumption of office, comported himself with a dignity and sagacity which have made a favourable impression in official circles.
The training of the young Emperor, who now enters the Palace as a healthy boy of 3, is exciting some attention, and there is among the better class of officials a fairly general feeling that he should not be exposed to the influences to which his two predecessors have in turn succumbed. But Palace reform is a large question, all the changes which have taken place in recent years having left the power of the eunuchs untouched.
I have the honour to inclose copies of a series of Decrees which have been issued in connection with the demise of the Emperor and Empress-Dowager and the inauguration of the new reign, together with copies of my replies to Prince Ching's notes announcing the Imperial deaths. His other communications have all received the usual formal acknowledgment.
These papers are naturally couched for the most part in the stereotyped phraseology of centuries, but there are one or two passages which strike a different note and make an appeal to the nation on modern lines. In their valedictory addresses both the Emperor and Empress-Dowager lay special stress upon the establishment of a Constitutional Government; the Emperor takes credit to himself for having effected a reconciliation between the Christian and non-Christian elements in the population, for having promoted education and encouraged trade, and for having placed the army on a better footing; while the Empress, as before noted, takes a hopeful view of the future and of the prospect which a long minority affords of pushing forward the cause of reform.
It may not be out of place, on the threshold of a new era, to place on record as briefly as possible a few of the leading events in the reign which has just closed.
The last Emperor, T'ung Chih, died on the 17th January, 1875, at the early age of 18. His wife was pregnant at the time, but died without giving birth to her child. His mother, the Empress-Dowager, had practically been Regent during the whole of his reign, and determined, in order to give herself a further lease of power, to adopt the
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infant son of Prince Ch'un as the future Emperor. Prince Ch'un was the younger brother of her husband, the late Emperor Hsien Feng, and his wife was her sister. The youthful Emperor, therefore, was closely related to her both on the father and mother's side, and to make the tie still closer, she acquired the authority of a mother over him by making him the posthumous heir, not of the last Emperor, but of her own husband, Bsien Feng-an arrangement which gave grave dissatisfaction, and was always regarded as a flaw in his title to the succession, The Emperor came of age in 1887, and on the 26th February, 1889, married his cousin, the daughter of the Empress- Dowager's brother, by whom, for reasons well understood, he had no issue. A Decree of the 11th July, 1886, had announced that he would assume personal direction of the Government early in the following year, but a little later the Empress-Dowager made it publicly known that she would, "in deference to the desires of the whole nation," continue to supervise the young Monarch's acts. In March 1891, Kuang Hsü gave his first audience to the foreign Representatives. A fragile delicate youth with a melan- choly face, he gave the impression of having little intelligence or strength of character- and his appearance changed but little in after-years. At the audiences of 1891 and 1892, which he conducted himself, he seemed to take some interest in the proceedings, but in recent years, when he occupied a position markedly below that of the Empress- Dowager, he remained an absolutely passive spectator of what was going on.
The war with Japan in 1894, and the various acts of foreign aggression which followed it, produced a movement in favour of reform which soon began to make itself felt throughout the Empire. In 1898 the Emperor came under the influence of a band of young officials and scholars, whose leader, Kang Yu-wei, was generally regarded as a worthless visionary. A series of startling Decrees appeared in June and July of that year, by which the system of examination was to be radically changed in favour of Western learning; the Government was to be completely reorganized; colleges and schools for the advancement of scientific knowledge were to be established, and the right to memorialize the Throne direct was to be conferred upon all officials without regard to rank.
These innovations, some of which have since been introduced, were viewed at the time with consternation by the Empress-Dowager and the more conservative of the governing class. Rumours of a plot to remove the Dowager Empress to a place of confinement, where she would be powerless to hamper the new "régime, called for immediate action.
The reformers were executed or fled the country, and all their work was undone by a Decree which purported to be issued by the Emperor himself, and which terminated his brief assertion of authority.
In a Decree dated the 31st January, 1900, the Emperor was made to recall the arrangement come to at the time of his accession, by which, on an heir being born to him, the child was to become the heir of the late Emperor. His Majesty regretted the failure of this arrangement owing to his own ill-health, and announced that the Empress- Dowager had, at his own request, selected Pu Ch'un, the son of Prince Tuan, to be the Heir-Apparent. On the outbreak of the Boxer troubles a few months later, and the advance of the foreign troops on Peking, the Imperial family fled to Hsi-an Fu, and only returned to the capital in January 1902. Pu Ch'un, whose father had been the main instigator of the Boxer movement, was disinherited, and the old relations were resumed between the Empress-Dowager and the Emperor.
Although Kuang Hsü was almost a nonentity as any Emperor, his reign will mark the parting of the ways in Chinese history as the period which witnessed the national awakening of the Empire. The figment of almost universal supremacy, to which China had so long clung, received a rude shock in her exclusion from Corea, Tongking, and Burma, and the loss of Formosa was a still severer blow. War and internal troubles have saddled her with a heavy foreign debt, and the navy, which was built up at such expense in the early years of the reign, disappeared with the battle of the Yalu.
Foreign Powers have become lessees of important strategic points on the coast and have pushed lines of railway far into the interior as instruments of further encroachment. Her capital and its approaches are still occupied by foreign troops, and Manchuria, the home of her rulers, has been twice practically lost and is still only partially recovered.
These are some of the losses on the debit side of the account. The items of the credit side are perhaps less tangible, but not the less real.
In the first year of Kuang Hsü's reign, the short line of railway from Shanghae to Woosung was torn up, and for years afterwards railways were tabooed by the Chinese. Now there are some 6,000 miles constructed or under construction, mostly built by
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