d Any.
Tue unequivocal declaration of the British Government that it will not be a party to the partitioning of China will do much to strengthen the hands of our political agents, and to confirm their adhesion to our side those native magnates who so far have been successful in maintaining peace and good onder in many provinces. The Government has hoisted its Hag: if it nails it to the mast all will probably be well, since there are other standards boldly blazoned with the same device. At the moment, indeed, we see but one element powerful enough to prevent the realisation of our hopes, and that is to be found amongst the natives themselves. It seems incredible to us that any Wes-to the continuance of a regime Thich tern Government should b> a party
has brought about the present crisis. Yet so emphatic is the wording of the telegram that there is a fear that liberal measures of reform may not ted on, that the familiar non possumus will be admitted, and the car of State allowed to run in the same old ruts. If so the chance for a new China will be gone, perhaps for ever, history will repeat itself ad nauseam, and partition become imperative. This is a fear which at the moment even progressive Chinese can do little to allay. Amongst foreigners there are many who absolutely refuse to believe that any good can come out of Nazareth. They are in favour of dismemberment pure and simple, giving as their princi reasons the impossibility of progress without partition, the never-ceasing dread of outbursts similar to that now in progress, the hopelessness of honest government, and the curtailment of trade.
Can the "men who count" in China these objections fairly and an they honestly say 3 it and we will show you that it is possible for China to go ahead without losing her integrity?" Are they prepared to welcome everything native or foreign that tends in that direction? Have they the will and the power to make their land as safe for everybody living in it, Christian and non-Christian, as in an English village? Will they guarantee a scrupulous collection and rendering of revenue? Will they dispense justice, not dispense with
European example and throw open its Are' they prepared, to follow their territory to trade and commerce These, say the partitionists, are the advantages expected from dismemberment. - If you can guarantee them without it, we shall be willing to consider your security, for that of course after previous experience we certainly shall require.
The non-partitionists on the other hand object to dismemberment on various grounds. The break-up of Poland, they declare, was a_political crime, and a greater than Poland is here. It would, moreover, be a task of stupendous difficulty to govern a disunited China, Think of Remember that on theaver-age each of the eighteen provinces equals in area a Great Britain, that there are no rapid means of communication, that large districts are frequently famine-stricken and three-fourths of the rest in a state of abject poverty, that manners, customs, and traditions are frequently in direct opposition to those of Europe, and finally that there is a leaven of unemployed literati, unreconciled and unreconcilable, whose influence would make alien government an impossibility or a farce. There is, besides, the risk of quarrels amongst the Powers themselves, another tangible reasons why partition is undesirable, The creation of closed spheres would by no means be a general blessing. It might please Russian merchants and French manufacturers to have a big slice of China which they could ex-plait without fear of competition from the ubiquitous Englishman, the pushing Teuton, or the up-to-date Yankee, but for the world at large the present condition promises greater profit. The non-partitionists, too, not hesitate to state their belief that the Chinese can, with some little urging and direction, do the things that are required of them.
There is reason on both sides. Both in fact are aiming at and working for the same result—the progress of China. Whether their object would not be more easy of attainment by union rather than disunion, it is for them to decide. At any rate, after the declarations already made, it seems fairly certain that the goose which is expected to lay so many golden egy gs, and itself get fat in the process will not be carved as yet. Life and liberty up to a certain point are assured to it. Is then the tionist to look in vain for the broadened fields in which to exercise his ener-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.