of the life of the dowager empress it was his influence which
largely reconciled her to the new reform movement. Yet Kwang-su
had not forgotten the coup d’état of 1898, and it is alleged
that he left a testament calling upon his brother the prince
regent to avenge the wrongs he had suffered.[1] During the
Agreement
with Japan.
greater part of the year there was serious estrangement
between China and Japan, but on the 4th of September
a convention was signed which settled most of the
points in dispute respecting Manchuria and Korea. In
Korea the boundary was adjusted so that Chientao, a mountainous
district in eastern Manchuria regarded as the ancestral
home of the reigning families of China and Korea, was definitely
assigned to China; while in Manchuria, both as to
railways and mines, a policy of co-operation was substituted for
one of opposition.[2] Although Japan had made substantial
concessions, those made by China in return provoked loud
complaints from the southern provinces—the self-government
society calling for the dismissal of Prince Ching. In northern
Manchuria the Russian authorities had assumed territorial
jurisdiction at Harbin, but on the 4th of May an agreement was
signed recognizing Chinese jurisdiction.[3]
The spirit typified by the cry of “China for the Chinese” was
seen actively at work in the determined efforts made to exclude
foreign capital from railway affairs. The completion
in October 1909 of the Peking-Kalgan railway was
the cause of much patriotic rejoicing. The railway,
The control
of railways.
a purely Chinese undertaking, is 122 m. long and
took four years to build. It traversed difficult country, piercing
the Nan Kʽow Pass by four tunnels, one under the Great Wall
being 3580 ft. long. There was much controversy between foreign
financiers, generally backed by their respective governments, as
to the construction of other lines. In March 1909 the Deutschasiatische
Bank secured a loan of £3,000,000 for the construction
of the Canton-Hankow railway. This concession was contrary
to an undertaking given in 1905 to British firms and was withdrawn,
but only in return for the admittance of German capital
in the Sze-chʽuen railway. After prolonged negotiations an
agreement was signed in Paris on the 24th of May 1910 for
a loan of £6,000,000 for the construction of the railway from
Hankow to Sze-chʽuen, in which British, French, German and
American interests were equally represented. In January
1910 the French line from Hanoi to Yunnan-fu was opened;[4]
the railway from Shanghai to Nanking was opened for through
traffic in 1909.
The progress of the anti-opium movement and the dispute
over the control of the Imperial Maritime Customs have already
been chronicled. A notable step was taken in 1909
by the institution of elected assemblies in each of the
provinces. The franchise on which the members
Provincial Assemblies constituted.
A senate formed.
were elected was very limited, and the assemblies
were given consultative powers only. They were
opened on the 14th of October (the 1st day of the
9th moon). The businesslike manner in which these assemblies
conducted their work was a matter of general comment among
foreign observers in China.[5] In February 1910 decrees
appeared approving schemes drawn up by the Commission for
Constitutional Reforms, providing for local government in
prefectures and departments and for the reform of the judiciary.
This was followed on the 9th of May by another decree summoning
the senate to meet for the first time on the 1st day of
the 9th moon (the 3rd of October 1910). All the members of the
senate were nominated, and the majority were Manchus. Neither
to the provincial assemblies nor to the senate was any power
of the purse given, and the drawing up of a budget was postponed
until 1915.[6]
The efforts of the central government to increase the efficiency
of the army and to re-create a navy were continued in 1910.
China was credited with the intention of spending £40,000,000
on the rehabilitation of its naval and military forces. It was
estimated in March 1910 that there were about 200,000
foreign-trained men, but their independent spirit and disaffection
constituted a danger to internal peace. The danger was accentuated
by the mutual jealousy of the central and provincial
governments. The anti-dynastic agitation, moreover, again
seemed to be growing in strength. In April 1910 there was
serious rioting at Changsha, Hu-nan, a town whence a few years
previously had issued a quantity of anti-foreign literature of a
vile kind. The immediate causes of the riots seem to have been
many: rumours of the intention of the foreign powers to dismember
China, the establishment of foreign firms at Changsha
Anti-dynastic movements.
Riots in Hu-nan.
competing with native firms and exporting rice and
salt at a time when the province was suffering from
famine, and the approach of Halley’s comet. Probably
famine precipitated the outbreak, which was easily
crushed, as was also a rising in May at Yung chow, a
town in the south of Hu-nan. Much mission and mercantile
property was wrecked at Changsha, but the only loss of life
was the accidental drowning of three Roman Catholic priests.
An edict of the 17th of August 1910 effected considerable and unexpected changes in the personnel of the central government. Tang Shao-yi, a former lieutenant of Yuan Shih-kai, was appointed president of the Board of Communications, and to him fell the difficult task of reconciling Chinese and foreign interests in the development of the railway system. Sheng Kung-pao regarded as the chief Chinese authority on currency questions, and an advocate of the adoption of a gold standard, was attached to the Board of Finance to help in the reforms decreed The regent’s policy. by an edict of May of the same year (see ante, Currency). The issue of the edict was attributed to the influence with the regent of Prince Tsai-tao, who had recently returned from a tour in Europe, where he had specially studied questions of national defence. The changes made among the high officials tended greatly to strengthen the central administration. The government had viewed with some disquiet the Russo-Japanese agreement of the 4th of July concerning Manchuria (which was generally interpreted as in fact lessening the authority of China in that country); it had become involved in another dispute with Great Britain, which regarded some of the measures taken to suppress opium smoking as a violation of the terms of the Chifu convention, and its action in Tibet had caused alarm in India. Thus the appointment to high office of men of enlightenment, pledged to a reform policy, was calculated to restore confidence in the policy of the Peking authorities. This confidence would have been greater had not the changes indicated a struggle for supreme power between the regent and the dowager empress Lung Yu, widow of Kwang-su.
The strength of the various movements at work throughout China was at this time extremely difficult to gauge; the intensity of the desire for the acquisition of Western knowledge was equalled by the desire to secure the independence of the country from foreign control. The second of these desires gave the force it possessed to the anti-dynastic movement. At the same time some of the firmest supporters of reform were found among the Manchus, nor did there seem to be any reason to doubt the intention of the regent—if he retained power—to guide the nation through the troubled period of transition into an era of constitutional government and the full development of the resources of the empire. (X.)
Bibliographical Note.—Knowledge of the ancient history of China is necessarily derived from the native writers on the subject. Fortunately, the Chinese have always regarded the preservation of the national records as a matter of supreme importance. Confucius set an example in this respect, and has preserved for us in the Spring and Autumn Annals and the Shu-king, or Book of History, records of his country’s progress during the past and then present centuries. The celebrated emperor Shih Hwang-ti, in establishing the empire, attempted to strengthen his cause by destroying all works on the national history. But so strongly was the historical sense inculcated in the people that immediately on the death of the
- ↑ See The Times of the 7th of September 1909.
- ↑ Proposals made early in 1910 by the American secretary of state for the neutralization of the Manchurian railway received no support.
- ↑ By a convention signed on July 4th, 1910, Russia and Japan agreed to “maintain and respect” the status quo in Manchuria.
- ↑ See the Quinzaine coloniale of the 10th of December 1909.
- ↑ See The Times of the 20th of January 1910.
- ↑ See for the prospects of reform The Times of 30th May 1910.
