Photo and Copyright by Underwood & Underwood 
PEKING: A TYPICAL GATEWAY 
“The thing that precipitated the revolution was the Manchu policy of a centralized 
government, to achieve which the cooperation of the finance and industry of outside powers 
was essential. 
The provinces that have set up a republic have not been willing, after 
immemorial independence, to surrender so little of their states’ rights as was demanded by 
the imperial policy, nor to support a reform which would increase the revenues of the central 
government, and by the extension of railways and other communications extend its power. 
The Manchus have not been without fault. They have been too Chinese, too conservative, 
too exclusive. But in their policy for the welfare of China, those wise statesmen of the 
Chinese race, like Yuan Shi Kai, have found no fault with them” (see page 1135). 
