Nov. 3.
Just four years since the opening of China's first Parliament Presidential Mandate announces that she may be trusted to experiment with a third; and if there be any truth in old sayings, the auspices should be favourable to the new attempt. The first Parliament was too conservative for the spirit of the times in which it was born, the second too arrogantly radical to endure in such a country China. Now it is to be shown whether the third can strike the golden mean. It is to be strialler in numbers than its two predecessors—the revised constitu. tion passed last April speaks of but 100 members in the Lifayuan. Its selection is, moreover, to be carefully controlled, as shown by certain significant references in the Mandate, which we reproduce to-day, to the importance of regarding the conditions of the country, the impossibility, of "cutting one's feet to fit a pair of shoes," and the operation of Election Supervisors working in special administration—_districts."" Bitter experience, however, has shown the folly of leaving these things to chance; and again and again it has been urged that Parliament has none the less a valuable task to do, because it must temporarily consent to be guided by authority in the greatest affairs of state.
The Parliament which met in October, 1910, contained a strong leaven of Imperial princes snd clansmen. This did not prevent it from assailing several ques tions, such as finance, Imperial extravagance and official appointments, which were supposed to be entirely outside its sphere. Whether it might have done good work if given a fair chance, is an interesting matter of speculation. Tt had sense enough, year later when the revolution broke out, to recognize the possibilities of the Imperial offer of a constitutional monarchy and to accept the offer forthwith But the only result was to bring down upon itself the wrath of the hotheads of Shanghai, Nanking and Canton, under which furnace blast it withered out of existence. The Parliament which assembled, first at Nanking afterwards at Peking, li in the early spring of 1912 and dragged on an irregular existence until November, 1913, was probably unique in the his-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.