CO129-416 - Public Offices - 1914 — Page 277

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confidence, which have been the natural outcome of the disturbances, will be probably only a temporary phenomenon, but long after normal conditions have been restored the commercial community will remember their late experiences, and it is safe to assume that their influence will continue to be thrown with increasing weight on the side of a strong central administration capable of maintaining internal order.

At the outbreak of hostilities fears were expressed that general disaffection would be found to exist among the high provincial officials throughout China. Had the Central Government been less well supplied with funds, and bad its forces suffered au early and decisive defeat in the field, it is possible that these fears might have materialised. ln the event they have proved unfounded. The northern provinces have remained uniformly loyal to the provisional President. The Tatus of Yunnan, Kueichow and Shensi have proved the value of their loyalty by despatching troops against the rebels in neighbouring provinces. In Hunan, Chekiang and Fukien the high provincial authorities, having declared independence under the stress of force majeure, took the earliest opportunity of returning to their allegiance, and that Yuan Shih-kai is convinced of their loyalty is proved by the fact that they have been confirmed in their positions. Even in Kuangtung and Szechuan sufficient adherents of the Central Government were found to suppress the local rebels without serious assistance from outside. There is no reason to apprehend that the sympathies of the provincial governors, which have lately been shown as strongly in favour of the provisional President and his policy of opposition to disintegration, will undergo any marked change in the immediate future. It must not, on the other hand, be forgotten that such a change might possibly result should the Central Government fall into a state of financial embarrassment and be no longer able to dispose of the large sums of ready money which have lately been employed against the rebels.

There remains to be considered the position of the large numbers of Chinese youths who have returned from Japanese, American, or European universities, and who form the nucleus of what is popularly known as the "Young China" With the exception of a very limited number of individuals, who have genuinely party. assimilated some branch of Western knowledge and have already taken their place in the professional life of China, the young Chinaman, who has enjoyed the benefits of a superficial foreign education, is as strongly opposed to the arbitrary régime of Yuan Shih-kai as he was to that of the Manchu Empire. He helped to over- throw the late dynasty, and, having achieved his purpose, finds that he has set up in its place a Republic which is as autocratic in its inethods of administration and which has as little use for his services as that of the Government which he overthrew. It is difficult to determine whether any serious part in the late rebellion was played by the returned student class. It is improbable that any considerable number of them took the field as active partisans of the southern cause, but almost certain that there exist many thousands of Chinese middle-class homes in which a constant propaganda is being carried on in favour of a genuinely democratic Republic as advocated by Sun Yat-sen and in opposition to the autocratic Republic of which Yuan Shih-kai is provisional President. It must also be remembered that the ranks of the "Young China" malcontents are being constantly augmented by fresh arrivals from abroad, and that no effort at conciliating this dangerous element has been made by the present administration.

Under these circumstances, it is probably correct to assume that such weight as is carried by the majority of young foreign-educated Chinamen will continue to be thrown on the side of the forces opposed to the Central Government as at present constituted. The function will doubtless be to keep alive the latent hostility to the north, which is apparently endemic in the southern provinces.

I have endeavoured to show above that the so-called suppression of the late rebellion has left in existence elements from which armed forces could easily be raised for the purposes of a fresh rising, that the leaders of the movement have little reason to fear, and some direct incentives to hazard a renewed attack on the Central Government, and that the success of Yuan Shih-kai in dealing with the troubles has been due much more to the superiority of his financial position than to that of the forces which took the field on his behalf.

Before the close of the current year the funds at the disposal of the Chinese Government will almost certainly be exhausted. It is thought by those who favour the view that no definite or permanent suppression of southern aspirations has been accomplished, that this moment will be chosen by the opposition forces for a renewed attack on the Central Government.