B. L. Putnam Weale

“ On the other hand France has lost her Northern provinces and Belgium, Serbia and Rumania are blotted off the map. Should Germany be victorious, the whole of Europe—not to speak of a weak country like China—would be in great peril of extinction. Should she be defeated, Germany still can—after the conclusion of peace—send a fleet to war against us. And as the Powers will be afraid of a second world-war, who will come to our aid? Have we not seen the example of Korea? There is no such thing as an army of righteousness which will come to the assistance of weak nations. ”

“ China's republic is doomed, no matter what happens. If we do not change it ourselves, others will do it for us. Should we undertake the change ourselves we can save the nation: otherwise there is no hope for China to remain a nation. It is to be regretted that our people now assume an attitude of indifference, being reluctant to look forward to the future, and caring not what may happen to them and their country. They are doomed to become slaves after the loss of their national independence. ”

“ To be an independent nation today, we must need follow the ways of the present age. One who opposes the current of the world and protects himself against the enriching influence of the world-spirit must eventually share the fate of the unselected. It is sincerely hoped that the Great President will refrain to some extent from restoring the old and withal work for real reform. Law can only be made a living force by both the ruler and the people obeying it with sincerity. When the law loses its strength, the people will not know how to act; and then the dignity of Government will disappear. ”

“ Think of what might not happen in China if the people were not wholly reasonable! Throughout the length and breadth of the land you have small communities of foreigners, mere drops in a mighty ocean of four hundred millions, living absolutely secure although absolutely at the mercy of their huge swarms of neighbours. All such foreigners—or nearly all—have come to China for purposes of profit; they depend for their livelihood on co-operation with the Chinese; and once that co-operation ceases they might as well be dead and buried for all the good residence will do them. ”

“ If Heaven blesses China and allows the Great President to devote himself to the country for ten or more years—during which he will be able to assert the authority of the government, cleanse officialdom, store-up strength, consolidate the country, and banish all hidden dangers—then there will be nothing to choose between a republic or a monarchy. If, on the other hand, Heaven should not be pleased so to favour us and takes away our Great President before he is half through with his great task, then the fate of China is sealed. ”

“ The only qualification which a leader at such a time needs to possess is the control of the military, and the ability to suppress Parliament. Should such a person be made the president, he cannot long hold his enviable post in view of the fact that he cannot possess sufficient influence to control the troops of the whole country. The generals of equal rank and standing will not obey each other, while the soldiers and politicians, seeing a chance in these differences for their advancement, will stir up their feelings and incite one another to fight. They will fight hard among themselves. ”

“ That is, you wish that once the expected monarchy is established it may continue for ever. Now by what principle can such a monarchy continue for ever, except that the laws and orders of that dynasty be obeyed, and obeyed implicitly by all, from the Court down to the common people? For one to adopt methods that violate the law while engaged in creating a new dynasty is like a man, who, to secure a wife, induces the virtuous virgin to commit fornication with him, on the plea that as a marriage will be arranged preservation of her virtue need not be insisted upon. ”

“ This Westernly march so greatly enlarged the Japanese political horizon, and so entirely changed the Japanese viewpoint, that the statesmen of Tokio in their excitement threw off their ancient spectacles and found to their astonishment that their eyes were every whit as good as European eyes. Now seeing the world as others had long seen it, they understood that just as with the individuals so with nations the struggle for existence can most easily be conducted by adopting that war-principle of Clausewitz—the restless offensive, and not by writing meaningless dispatches. ”

“ From my student days, I, Yuan Shih-kai, have admired the example of the Emperors Yao and Shun, who treated the empire as a public trust, and considered that the record of a dynasty in history for good or ill is inseparably bound up with the public spirit or self-seeking by which it has been animated. On attaining middle age I grew more familiar with foreign affairs, was struck by the admirable republican system in France and America, and felt that they were a true embodiment of the democratic precepts of the ancients. ”

“ I am now opposing your theory of monarchical revolution, just as I once opposed your theory of republican revolution, in the same spirit, and I am doing the same duty. My belief is that since the country is now in a most weakened state, we may yet fail even if we do all we can at all times to nurse its wound and gather up its scattered strength. How can any one devote his time and energy to the discussion of a question of no importance such as the form of state, and so obstruct the progress of the administration? ”

“ Even if the president is a sagacious and capable man, he will not be able to make a policy for the country or fix a Constitution which will last for a hundred years. Because of this he is driven merely to adopt a policy so as to maintain peace in his own country and to keep the nation intact so long as he may live. In the circumstances such a president can be considered the best executive head we can have. Those who are worshippers of the constitutional government cannot do more than he does. ”

“ Briefly, when all the facts are properly grouped it can be said that Yuan Shih-kai was killed by his foreign friends—by the sort of advice he has been consistently given in Constitutional Law, in Finance, in Politics, in Diplomacy. It is easy to trace step by step the broad road he had been tempted to travel, and to see how at each turning-point the men who should have taught him how to be true and loyal to the Western things the country had nominally adhered to from the proclamation of the Republic, showed him how to be disloyal and untrue. ”

“ I do not know how much power the people and the parliament will get in the constitutional monarchy, but I would like to point out here that it is better to give them less power than to deceive them. If they are given less power, and if they want more, they will contend for it. Should the government deem it advisable to give them a little more, well and good. Should they be unfit for the possession of greater power, the government can issue a proclamation giving the reasons for not complying with their request, and they will not raise trouble knowing the true intention of the government. ”

“ Our blood runs cold when we face the dangers at the door. Not once but twice hath the President taken the oath to observe and obey the Constitution and protect and maintain the Republic. The oath was sworn before Heaven and Earth; and it is on record in the hearts of millions of people and the words thereof still echo in the ears of the people of all nations. In the Classics it is said that "in dealing with the people of the country, faith is of the essence of great rule." Again it is written that "without faith a people cannot endure as a nation." ”

“ At this time of exhaustion when its vitality is being wasted to the last drop and the existence of the country is hanging in the balance, we, as if treading on thin ice over deep waters, dare not in the slightest degree indulge in license on the principle that the Sovereign is entitled to enjoyment. ”

“ All countries are interested in seeing wars becoming as rare as possible. Consequently China cannot but show satisfaction with the views of the Government and people of the United States of America who declare themselves ready, and even eager, to co-operate when the war is over, by all proper means to assure the respect of the principle of the equality of nations, whatever their power may be, and to relieve them of the peril of wrong and violence. China is ready to join her efforts with theirs for the attainment of such results which can only be obtained through the help of all. ”

“ The vastness and audacity of it all cannot fail to strike the imaginative mind, for the four or five hundred men who are gathered here typify, if they do not yet represent, the four or five hundred millions who make up the country. You see as it were the nation in profile, a ponderous, slow-moving mass, quickly responsive to curious sub-conscious influences—suddenly angry and suddenly calm again because Reason has after all always been the great goddess which is perpetually worshipped. ”

“ At the beginning of the Republic there are many things to be taken care of. I, Yuan Shih-kai, sincerely wish to exert my utmost to promote the democratic spirit, to remove the dark blots of despotism, to obey strictly the Constitution, and to abide by the wish of the people, so as to place the country in a safe, united, strong, and firm position, and to effect the happiness and welfare of the divisions of the Chinese race. ”

“ It has already been a fatal mistake for the President to have allowed them to do what they like, and if he again yields to their pressure by dissolving Parliament, he will be held responsible, when the righteous troops rise and punish the rebels. If the President, deceived by ignoble persons, take upon himself to dissolve the assembly, his name will go down in history as one committing high treason against the Government, and the author of the break between the North and the South. The President has been known as the man by whose hands the Republic was built. ”

“ It would have been impossible for Peking, unless men of outstanding genius had been living, to have foreseen that not only had the real bases of government now become entirely economic control, but that the very moment that control faltered the central government of China would openly and absolutely cease to be any government at all. Modern commercialism, already invading China at many points through the medium of the treaty-ports, was a force which in the long run could not be denied. ”

“ All are scholarly and deliberate in their movements. When the Speaker calls the House in order and the debate commences, deep silence comes save for the movement of hundreds of nervous hands that touch papers or fidget to and fro. Every man uses his hands, particularly when he speaks, not clenched as a European would do, but open, with the slim figures speaking a language of their own, twisting, turning, insinuating, deriding, a little history of compromises. It would be interesting to write the story of China from a study of the hands. ”

“ General Li Yuan Hung knew well that the cool and singular plan which had been pursued to forge a national mandate for a revival of the empire would take years completely to obliterate, and that the octopus-hold of the Military Party—the army being the one effective organization which had survived the Revolution—could not be loosened in a day,—in fact would have to be tolerated until the nation asserted itself and showed that it could and would be master. ”

“ If we study the monarchical countries we will find that usually a dynasty is created by a person who is capable of controlling the force of the entire country and overthrowing other persons opposed to him, working towards his goal with an undaunted spirit. If this man is capable of ruling the nation and if he is a rare genius of the day, and the conditions of the country are suited for a monarchical government, he as a rule creates a new dynasty and his descendants inherit the same from generation to generation. ”

“ No task is harder than to establish a republic in a country, the intelligence of whose people is low. These republics, therefore, reaped no good results although they tried to retain republicanism unnaturally. The consequence is that the republics of Central and South America have been a living drama of continuous internal disturbance. One after another their military leaders have grasped the power of administration. Occasionally there has been peace but this peace has only been secured by the iron hand of one or two powerful men holding the power. ”

“ It is because Diaz, under the mask of a republic, actually played the role of a despot. During all the thirty years he held office he never devoted himself to the strengthening of the fundamental things of State, but diligently strengthened his own position. He massed an enormous number of troops for his own protection so that he might overawe the people. For fear that the troops might become arrogant and insubordinate, he provoked disagreement among them in order that he might play them round his fingers. He banished all those who opposed him, relying on force alone. ”

“ China by her recent acts has given a categorical and unmistakable reply to all the insidious attempts to place her outside and beyond the operation of international law and all those sanctions which make life worth living; and because of the formal birth of a Foreign Policy it can be definitely expected that this nation, despite its internal troubles and struggles, will never rest content until she has created a new nexus of world-relationships which shall affirm and apply every one of the principles experience elsewhere has proved are the absolute essentials to peace and happiness. ”

“ The people needed a leader to guide them through the great gateway of the West, to help them to acquire those jewels of wisdom and experience which are a common heritage. An almost Elizabethan eagerness rilled them, as if a New World they had never dreamed of had been suddenly discovered for them and lay open to their endeavours. China, hitherto derided as a decaying land, had been born anew ”

“ Puzzled by a phenomenon which is so disconcerting as to be incapable of any clear definition, they have ended by declaring that an empty Treasury is an empty rule, adding that as it is solely from this monetary viewpoint that the New China ought to be judged, their opinion is the one which will finally be accepted as authoritative. The situation is admittedly dangerous; and it is imperative that a speedy remedy be sought; for the heirs and assigns of an estate which has been mismanaged to the brink of bankruptcy must secure at all costs that no public receivership is made. ”