REVIEWS OF RECENT BOOKS 225 



followed, so that by the irony fate he found himself at the end of a 

 long life devoted to the service of the Chinese Government and people 

 an unwilling spectator in that midsummer madness of 1900 in Peking 

 when the edifice he had toiled so hard to erect came crashing down, at 

 least so it must have seemed to him, in smoke and ruin. One would 

 gladly believe that the Republican leaders of to-day in China, profiting 

 by the mistakes and misfortunes of their predecessors had learnt the 

 hard lesson of accepting disinterested if often unpalatable foreign 

 advice and assistance and thereby saving their country from these 

 perpetual internal disorders and schisms which must inevitably tend 

 towards loss of independence and final disintegration. But recent 

 events force one reluctantly to the conclusion that this is not so and 

 the long looked for conclusion of a World Peace finds China divided 

 against herself, governed in name only by cabinets and parliaments 

 which are a travesty of democratic institutions, while the people are 

 robbed and oppressed by military despotisms, and we witness the 

 extraordinary spectacle of unpopular ministers being driven from office 

 by the shrill voices of school children and student and merchant 

 associations directing the policy of the country through the medium 

 of the telegraph and the public press. At the conclusion of his preface 

 Mr. Morse truly says that "this history demonstrates that advance, 

 progress and reform must proceed from the work of the Governments 

 which follow the Tsing Dynasty" and he adds that it is the fervent 

 wish of every friend of China that "reform and development may 

 bring an end to corruption, disorganization and weakness," a wish in 

 which we most heartily concur believing with Sir Robert Hart that the 

 country "will stagger onwards through all sorts of mistakes" and will 

 eventually extricate itself from the difficulties which now threaten from 

 within and without by reason of the innate industry, energy and good 

 sense of the Chinese people. 



It would be impossible to attempt an analysis of the varied and 

 detailed contents of these two volumes which range from the T'ai-p'ing 

 Rebellion to the Boxer outbreak, from the Burlingham Mission to the 

 American boycott, from Factory days and the Canton Hoppo to the 

 abdication of the Manchu Emperor and the summoning of China's 

 first parliament. There are besides a series of illuminating and authori- 

 tative essays on such subjects of general interest but uncertain general 

 knowledge as the Customs Service, its origin, development and 

 functions, the attitude of the Chinese towards foreign missions ; extra- 

 territoriality and foreign jurisdiction in China ; the development of 

 China's foreign trade, her railways, posts and communications ; and 

 last but not least a brief but clear account of the origin of the foreign 

 settlements at Shanghai, an area set apart, in the words of the author 

 15 



