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Show CHINA'S VASSALAGE. When about to make himself the first of a line of hereditary presidents of China a few years ago, Yuan Shi Kai had sufficient courage to intimate t hat the Chinese giant would not- remain the vassal of the .lapanese pigmy. He spoke guardedly, but hinted at the necessity for military preparedness backed by a strong government. China has existed as an independent nation for 3000 years. During more than 2V00 years ot that time she has been the dominant power in the east, tt is unreasonable to suppose that a nation na-tion of more than 300,000,000 people, powerful in thrift, in trade and industry, indus-try, should continue to be subservient to a much smaller though tcm porarily more progressive nation. China, as the western world has . known it for half a century or more, is not the China of history. More slowly than Japan it is being accustomed accus-tomed to modern ways, to the momentum mo-mentum of material progress and to the necessity of guarding its internal inter-cats inter-cats against outside interference. But that China is gradually learning the essential es-sential lessons of modern civilization who shall doubt? The mere change from an elective to a hereditary presidency is not a symptom of permanent retrogression retro-gression to despotism. Perhaps Yuan Shi Kai understands that as well as other keen politicians of China. China, as often has been remarked, is the country of big things. Even the vegetables are gigantic in response to the need of feeding the teeming population. popu-lation. There was an old story to the effect that a bragging Irishman who had come to this country said: "The stars in Ireland are as big as your moons here." In China it is literally true that the vegetables are constructed on a grand architectural scale. However' clumsily, therefore, Chiua may exert her strength, yet her total strength is titanic. We hear with horror of the losses on the European battlefields, bat-tlefields, and we are wont to declare that history has never witnessed anything any-thing like it. and vet no less an authority au-thority on Chinese affairs than Wells Williams states that in the Taiping rebellion re-bellion from 1852 to 1863 the losses were 20,000,000. If China were ready to make a similar sacrifice in the aext ten or fifteen years how Ipng could Japan, or, for that matter, aggressive western nations, keep China in bondage? China is opening up gradually. Her mines, farms and factories arc increas- ing their production immensely, and slowly bn-t surely railroads are reaching out to every district of t bo empire. Some day the chains that bind China will be rent asunder by the invisible growth of the giant. Hereditary presidents, or even occasional occa-sional despots, cannot stop this irregular irregu-lar but none the less persistent progress. China was under the rule of despots for 2000 years, but the millions throughout the empire did not realize the existence of an oppressive oppres-sive tyranny. The country was too big for intimate personal government govern-ment by any despot, and so it came to pass that the deified rulers of China were content to exert their despotic sway only among their agents near the throne. If the taxes wore collected thelespot did not worry or use force until the people rebelled against the taxpayers and drove them out. Meantime the Chinese enjoyed homo rule in their local afTairs. The family rlanB and the trade guilds took care of all the customary afTairs of daily business busi-ness and social life. And what was true a thousand years ago is true today. China neeils more liberty, it is true more liberty to. become efficient bv enlightened en-lightened and syrfhiatio effort. China is a tremendous engine, whose gears arc constantly out of order. Once the engine en-gine is placed in perfect working order it will be the higgt Mogul, engine of the world, perhaps. |