TuE desire for reform in education, if not in administration, seems firmly implanted in a majority of the leading minds of China and in the heart of the people. The Reform Eudicts of Kuang Hsii have been slowly mature ing during the troubled years. since 1898, and are bringing forth their fruit in due season. It begins to appear that the coup d'état was neither the last nor the chief word of that disastrous period. Even in China the scope of government cannot be divorced from the will of the people, in the last resort the basis of all government, and, given a popular desire for reform, sooner or later, it must come. That it proceeds slowly and with much difficulty is not to be wondered at, nothing else could be expected.
In the range of international politics the dominant and disastrous note of China has been opportunism. She has not yet learned that as a policy opportunism never pays, It begets mistrust and suspicion. So long and so often has China been engaged in drawing the red herring of equivocal edicts across the trail of past misbehaviour, that it is not at all surprising to find the education edicts of the past few months regarded in very many circles as a move on the part of the wily ones in Peking. Instructions to Viceroys are not enough. What is now required is some clear and unmistakeable evidence of good faith from the Empress Dowager and her Government. Until this is forthcoming it is not to be expected that Chinese who have been educated abroad, or have graduated from Western Colleges in China, will come forward offering their services as demanded by the edict of last year. Remembering former experiences of the kind, this might become an invitation to "duchy! duchy come and be killed!" When the required sense of security is afforded them, plenty of capable men will be found ready to serve their country. Is there "any prospect of such an evidence of good faith? It seems there is. It is commonly reported now that the Empress Dowager is learning English, and that her little speech to the Legation Jadies, "I hope we shall meet very often," was the first fruit of the new The wonderful old lady bo-that international difficulti are chiefly due to mutual ignorance of each other's tongue on the part of those engaged in international politics in Peking. "To know all is to forgive all" apparently. Perhaps, perhaps not, Anyhow itis becom: ing more evident that the Empress Dowager is inclining to the Reform Policy of the Emperor. If this is a deliberate intention on her part and not @ pose, it means that the Dynasty will break mere and win from the Manchus and become Chinese in sentiment and support.
The weight now attached to the counsels of the great Chinese Viceroys lends colour to this view. It being so, things may be worse before they are better. The cloud on the horizon is the displeasure of the powerful Manchus, and their partnership in- disaffection with Chinese bigotry and reaction. In their subjugation to the desire for reform on the part of the Empress Dowager, backed by the awakening patriotism of the people, lies the hope of future stability and peace.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.