CHAPTER XIX

THE ABDICATION EDICT

HANKOW, HUPEH, CHINA, February 13, 1912.

Half an hour ago I was handed a facsimile of the greatest Edict that has ever been issued in the Chinese Empire. It will become known as the Abdication Edict.

The following is a full text of the Edict which has become known as the Abdication Edict. As intimated in recent dispatches concerning the terms agreed upon, it became apparent that there was to be no complete abdication. The Emperor was simply to relinquish all political power, a new provisional Government was to take charge, which in turn was to be succeeded by a regular Government to be named by a National Convention. The Edict reads:--

"Since the uprising in Wuchang the Throne has complied with the people's request and promulgated nineteen articles of constitution, vesting in the Ministers of State all administrative powers in which the subjects may take part, and that members of the Imperial family should not interfere in political affairs. Subsequently an edict was issued calling a national convention to decide publicly on the government system, thus to show Our intention not to regard the Throne in a selfish spirit. The gentry and the people in the different provinces, however, opine that the situation is pressing, and that if the holding of a national convention is delayed, it is feared that disasters of war may be prolonged and the situation will not be saved. In addition, foreign troubles are threatening and new dangers appear daily, and in the present circumstances the nineteen articles of constitution are not entirely suited to conditions.

"The authority of the Premier especially is insufficient to rule the whole country from within, or to superintend foreign relations from without, and in order to adapt the government to exigencies, in which it is necessary to expect slight changes, the name of Premier {279} is hereby abrogated, and a President is created. All political power shall be vested in control of the President, who is to be elected by the people. But with the exception of resignation of all political powers, the majesty of the Emperor shall not be much different from what is set forth in the nineteen articles formerly adopted. We have enquired this course of the Princes, nobles, officials and gentry in the provinces who are agreed in their views. And it is becoming to comply with their request and let it be carried out according.

"But rumours are widespread, and during our resignation from the political government, unless a united organ exists to control affairs it is feared that good order may not be maintained. We hereby specially command Yuan Shih K'ai to act in conjunction with the officials and gentry of the north and the south and temporarily to form a provisional and united government to destroy the seeds of trouble. Once the national convention has met and formally elected the President, the provisional government will be dissolved, so as to comply with public opinion and display full justice. All our soldiers and people should know that in taking this step Our object is solely for the benefit of the State, the blessing of the people and to restore good order. All affairs will remain as of old, and they should not listen to rumours and create confusion and disturbances. It will thus be fortunate for the country as well as the general position."

Having agreed to abdication in favour of a Republic, the Empress-Dowager issued a secret edict commanding Yuan Shih K'ai to prepare for the formation of a provisional Government and the drawing up of a preliminary scheme to carry it into effect. During January Yuan Shih K'ai had several conferences, with the result that the following scheme was organized:--

ARTICLE 1 deals with the necessity of a provisional and united government after the Emperor's resignation from government to assume all powers in preserving the status quo and to control foreign affairs, and it will be dissolved after the national convention has elected a President.

2. After resignation from power the Emperor shall remain in the Palace so as to preserve peace in the north.

3. The President's residence shall be built in Peking, or the newly completed Regent's Palace may be converted into a presidential house.

4. Owing to the depletion of the treasuries of the present and also the Nanking government since the revolution, while means should be devised for the southern provinces, provisions shall be made towards meeting administrative expenses in the northern provinces after the provisional government has been formed.

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5. The northern and southern provinces should remove prejudices and assist the central united government and remit reasonable amounts of money to it to uphold the situation. Contributions from provinces which have suffered greatly may be deferred.

6. All official administrative officers in Peking shall remain in office, but owing to need of funds for the provisional government all salaries will be suspended for six months.

7. During a few months the pay of the northern and southern troops will be provided and the officers will remain in office.

8. When the provisional united government shall have been recognised by the foreign Powers, foreign relations shall be directly in charge of that government.

9. When the government system has been determined all foreign loans and indemnities shall be paid when due and the provinces should continue to send their usual contributions.

10. The Edict by which the Emperor surrenders the government shall be printed and copies promulgated throughout the country. An Edict will also be issued to the soldiery so as to acquaint them and prevent mutiny.

And before I commence this concluding chapter, there will be need to explain that the date of writing is placed at its head because of the rapidity with which changes are coming to the land and the people. In a footnote will be seen the Edict referred to. It stands alone among all edicts that have ever been issued in China. Of all political documents this may be taken as that which will shake the very centre of the world if it is carried into practical effect. So important is it that it were futile for one placed as the author is in the centre of this Empire to endeavour to analyse just what it may mean. What this Imperial Republic of China--for this is what now has come--will develop into only the future can show. Not within the power of any living man is it possible to-day to foretell. As one writes his pen tremulously travels lest telling what appears to-day as unshakable fact will even before this volume is published turn out, in this land of political elasticity, to be nothing but absurdity. But discarding altogether the cloak of the prophet, and drawing his everyday deductions from everyday experience throughout {281} out China's Revolution, one may now with confidence declare unhesitatingly that this country will make international headway as never before.

The Republic of China is now among the Powers of the world.

The Republicans of China, new-born into a life full of highest promise to mankind, now have free way. In them, if they are wise and good, as wise and good as we believe them anxious to be, we shall soon see on the horizon of the East a nation whose power will be ultimately predominant on the earth, upon whose integrity will undeniably depend the peace of the world. And whilst, if the Republicans rise to the best within them, if they are given foreign support such as their unparalleled political conduct deserves, if they are successful in keeping from their own ranks a dangerous spirit of office-seeking and petty jealousy--in short, if they reach to the zenith of the power that is expected of them by the West, they will make their country, huge as it is, in perhaps less time than the changing era took in Japan, the greatest Empire in the Far East. As I write the Powers, lynx-eyed as ever, are observing China. During the last four months China has been watched as no other nation was ever watched, and she has rushed through her great national drama with appalling speed. She is breathless. Nervously, with a wonderful confidence coming from her newly won emancipation, China is looking questioningly to the West. She knows that all the Powers are closely scrutinising her every movement through political eyeglasses. Having taken the plunge, she knows that they all expect her to break finally from the furrows of the ages--she is almost out of her national depths, and looks half-trustingly only to the Powers, lest she should get out of her depths. She knows that although not all show to her an unmingled friendly attitude--for some would prey upon her speedily, if left alone--it is her duty to herself to watch her political horizon far away. {282} The protest by the Chinese over the Dynasty that has ruled over them for two and a half centuries has been made in every part of China. It is not confined to one or more populous cities or provinces as at first was thought it would be, but this protest against Manchu ascendancy has received approval wherever the Chinese reside. Never in the history of any revolution have the people been more united in sentiment, or has established authority more quickly admitted the justice of that sentiment than the one which has now convulsed China from centre to circumference. Charles I. defended his crown on the battlefield, and yielded only to the genius of Cromwell. Louis XVI. thought to conciliate his political foes by concessions of so humiliating a nature as to forfeit national respect. Both of these kings lost their heads on a scaffold, the one by his hypocrisy, the other by his weakness. Thus far the Revolutionists throughout the country have manifested no barbaric desire for blood. There have been some disgusting acts of brutality in connection with the execution of their enemies. Often have they cut out the hearts and livers of their enemy and, devouring these human organs, and often drinking the human blood, have thought they have added to their bravery. But this sort of thing has been only on a very comparatively small scale. Generally speaking, their behaviour has been good. In the highest degree were they to be commended for their respect for personal safety and property, and the proclamations of their leaders--General Li, Wu Ting Fang, Sun Yat-sen, and others like-minded--had been worthy of the great end they professed to have in view. The United States declared war against Spain because of cruelties to the inhabitants of Cuba, but the burning of Hankow and reported butcheries at Nanking and other places belittle in their inhuman crimes any practised by Spanish soldiers on Cubans. But these things were the forerunners of the Republic {283} of China, and now that Republic has been won. The leaders are now more confident than ever of the good days coming.

Lest one should be led to condemn the confidence shown by her leaders and the makers of the Republic, however, we must remember that into the most populous nation of the world reform had come in four months which came to other countries who fought for their liberty only after years of fearful war. We are inclined, perhaps, we who expect more from the Chinese than perhaps we ourselves are capable of, to ridicule the efforts of this Republican Party, and to believe that all going on around us is a mere political make-believe. We are inclined, perhaps, almost totally to discount the ability of the members of the Republican party, men who, for the most part, have risen from the mediocrity of the nation. And I confess myself to have been during these months of active war among the number who pessimistically looked out upon a changing China. But, now that the critical days of the Revolution are passed, even the most cautious European in China--I mean cautious in regard to snatching at political straws which float down the stream of Chinese national life--even he must, if he be unbiased, acknowledge that history can show us no parallel to what is daily going on around us.

I am perfectly aware that many of the ambitions of the Republican party as it now is are at present unrealisable. I know that many of the old-time practices and corruptions against which their leaders so vehemently proclaimed will in the very nature of things be found necessary to continue. I cannot, however, discount the extreme sincerity of the main leaders, men who with no other motive than that of benefiting their fellow-nationals, are prepared to work hard and unostentatiously for the permanent good of their country. These are the real reformers. Many of them for years have been China's real reformers, but their {284} light has been under the national bushel. About them little has been known, and as often as not they have been despised as a dangerous faction in the country. In the press they have been cried down. The Manchu Government have been hunting them to do them to death--the leaders, at all events. There have been thousands of smaller men, however, sent abroad to light the fuse; but all of them have had their lights under the national bushel. It has come, in the main, in the march of education, and this morning, looking back over the years, it is a wonderful thing to be able to have in this document the product of the toiling of years of China's enlightened educated sons.

Since the Reform Edict of 1898 more articles have appeared in both the English and Chinese Press in China upon the subject of education than upon any other. To laud and to praise education has been the fashion--innumerable sticks of incense have been lit and set up to education in China. Education, however, was the means of winning the Revolution, and now the educated men are to have full sway. To them, as never before, the country is looking for right guidance: China has always looked to her scholars for guidance, but this is a new kind of scholar, with a new kind of learning.

And education, as has been pointed out by a writer on Chinese affairs, is a kind of tree which bears two manners of fruit--good and evil. It is a kind of petrol which may drive the individual or the State at a spanking pace along the path of progress, or it may explode with disastrous results to the car and all on board. The general discontent which prevails in so many of the leading nations may be traced directly to the wider spread of education. The industrial classes in the present day are better paid, better fed, better clad, better housed, and work shorter hours than ever before, but through education their aspirations for still more favourable conditions have been tenfold increased, and {285} their efforts to obtain them are becoming always more and more determined.

"We asked a leading Revolutionist the other day," said the writer quoted, "where the new men who are being sent to all the inland cities as magistrates came from. We supposed they were mostly men of the old magistrate class who were being reappointed, but he said 'no.' The bulk of them were young men who had received a modern education and who on examination proved themselves most fit. But for them, he said, there would have been no Revolution. Some had been educated at the expense of the Central Government, some by the provinces, and many at their own expense, but all with a view to obtaining official employment afterwards. This they failed to get, as the offices were only open to those who could afford to purchase them, so they determined to take them, and they have done it. It was not that they desired the spoils of office, but, like Napoleon, they felt that the tools should go to the workmen, and that they could serve their country better than the Manchus and Money Bags whom they wished to supersede."

Education has thus proved in China to be another name for revolution, and revolution means reform. The chance of the reformers has now come: we must wait for their reforms. Now is not the time to tell each other whether we shall see all that we may expect to see--that time will come in due course. But we know that whilst they have had their lights under this national bushel, the real reformers have succeeded in bringing the word "reform" to every one's lips in China. The assertion is made in a broad sense. During the past decade and a half every one has been adjuring some one else to reform, and each seemed to be pointing out the true way. This was the result of the working of the reformers, who were there toiling away under greatest odds and at some risk to their own lives, but who now have full power in the land. But {286} what is the genius of any reform, and what are the elements which ensure its success? The celebrated German philosopher, winner of the Nobel prize, Professor Eucken, writes: "The kernel of reform usually consists in the establishment of an essential, original and natural foundation, entailing the elimination of a network of artificialities, superfluities, and complications." This is true when we glance at the reformers of olden times who in turn harked back to a simpler state when elemental principles stood out more distinctly. Confucius and Mencius, as all Chinese students are aware, referred constantly to the three great kings when the rulers desired only the good of the people. The American people, when rebelling against the oppression of Great Britain, sought to restore the status of citizenship as it was supposed to be in the Mother Country. They fought for old-time Saxon freedom. Then came their reforms.

And so with the Chinese now. First, they must get the essential, original, and natural foundations--of liberty and justice. To plant in China ideas and manners and customs and things, however, which for centuries have held good in the West will not make in China for the best the people are capable of. They will be alien. To give to the Chinese an education only along lines laid down in the West as the best for men in the West would not guarantee the best being drawn out of the Chinese. There must be a commingling of the best the West has to offer with that which has been proved best for China unquestioned through the centuries of her wonderful history. It may or may not be a mistake of modern educationists to pound away only with Western subjects in educating the Chinese, not only not giving any heed to the preservation of the good in Chinese education, but openly dissuading its continuance. This I consider to be one of the weak points in the Republican propaganda--the excessive out-reaching for Western education at the {287} expense of all that really matters in the Chinese national life. The Republican outlook is everywhere filled with all things foreign. Every Revolutionist had shown that he must have a foreign outlook--and that, perhaps, in time to come may develop to be an outlook totally unsuited to China's teeming millions.

So far as the leaders have gone, however, they have made no great mistakes. The reformers, at all events, are now given the chance to show what they can do. If they are earnest in the declaration in favour of a Republic, the United States would seem the proper model, _mutatis mutandis_, to be copied. As the Emperor has been proved powerless to hold in subjection the provinces of the Empire, there is a similarity between them and the American colonies when the latter separated from the British Government to establish one of their own.

But whatever their pattern, it will be no easy matter practically to work out immediate reforms in this country--that they will be able to keep to any one plan, however, seems hardly possible.

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