SHIFTING SCENES ON THE STAGE OF 



NEW CHINA 



AN understanding of the present con- 

 dition of unrest and political 

 L chaos in China is impossible with- 

 out some knowledge of the background 

 of the past. 



The form of China's government under 

 the empire might be compared to that es- 

 tablished by Alexander the Great after 

 his conquest of the world. The Emperor 

 at Peking stood at the head of a country 

 divided into independent provinces ruled 

 by satraps, or governors, whose sole obli- 

 gation to the central government was 

 completed when they sent to the imperial 

 treasury their allotted quotas of imperial 

 revenue and insured peace within their 

 respective provincial boundaries. 



These satraps were the product of and 

 were assisted in their work by the 

 younger and less advanced products of 

 the literary examination system. They 

 composed the mandarinate, or civil-serv- 

 ice class, which monopolized the edu- 

 cated element of the nation. 



The end and aim of an ambitious young 

 man under this system was to pass suc- 

 cessfully the examinations and thereby 

 obtain preferment in the civil administra- 

 tion of the country. There was no need 

 for education in any other walk in life. 



Held together at first by a strong alien 

 ruling house which they despised, mem- 

 bers of the mandarinate later came to 

 support that house (the Manchus) as the 

 panoply of a government upon which 

 they depended for their station in life. 



A SHOCK TO CHINA'S PRIDE 



A government may retain the confi- 

 dence of the people it governs as long as 

 it is maintained in the interests of the 

 governed and not its own employees. It 

 must react promptly to the demands of 

 the governed, both as to domestic well- 

 being and in its relation with outside na- 

 tions. When this test is applied, the gov- 

 ernment maintained in its latter days by 

 the mandarinate is found wanting. 



Distrust grew, rebellion followed. For 

 years the government had allowed the 

 public works of the country to go unre- 

 paired ; nor was money spent on new 

 work. 



In 1894 the people suffered a shock to 

 their pride and trust in this government 

 through the defeat of their armies at the 

 hands of the Japanese. The nation, be- 

 sides losing important territory, was 

 forced to go into the financial markets of 

 the world to borrow money to pay its 

 war indemnities. 



The broker nations demanded certain 

 concessions as a quid pro quo. There en- 

 sued the battle of concessions. Between 

 1896 and 1898 Russia got Dalny, Ger- 

 many got Tsingtau, Great Britain got 

 Wei-hai-wei, and France got Kuang- 

 chau-wan. 



MANCHUS DIVERTED THE BOXER UPRISING 



In 1900, the so-called "Boxer Uprising" 

 occurred, beginning as an attack upon 

 the Manchu Dynasty, which the people 

 blamed for their troubles, internal as 

 well as external. 



The Manchu rulers, skillfully diverted 

 the wrath of the so-called uprising from 

 themselves to the foreigner, and thus 

 succeeded in obtaining a few years' re- 

 prieve, during which time they made a 

 violent effort to retrieve lost ground and 

 win back the confidence and trust of the 

 people they had so grossly misgoverned. 

 They saw the "handwriting on the wall" 

 and inaugurated an attempt to centralize 

 the government by nationalizing railway 

 construction, adding to the prestige of 

 the army by making the Emperor its 

 commander-in-chief, etc. 



But it was too late. The plan for rail- 

 way construction precipitated a conflict 

 between the forces in favor of centrali- 

 zation and those (greatly in the majority) 

 in favor of continuing the old plan, based 

 on the independence of the provinces. 



This conflict was characterized by overt 

 acts of hostility, of which those who had 

 been plotting revolution against the Man- 

 chu House took advantage. 



In 191 1 came the short revolution 

 which within three months brought about 

 the formal abdication of the Manchus. 

 who fired a Parthian shot by turning over 

 the government to Yuan Shih-K'ai. a 

 leader of the strongest party in the man- 



423 



