December 27.
Wira the National Assembly in session and amid the flood of Edicts and memorials, the march of events in China appears to bulk large at the present juncture, and it is only: when a cold record of progress made comes to be written that it can be realized how little has actually been achieved, In this state of affairs, 757 however, there is no room for wonder. China has been for too many co: turies of an " unaccompushing " habit, and a radical change of temperament becomes necessary before things can be done, This change is, undoubtedly, in rapid progress. First, the Provincial Assemblies and then in a more marked degree the National Assembly have together wakened official Chien out of the lethargy of ages, and if definite action is not to result with the existing rulers, their place may have to be taken by others more in harmony with the now spirit of the country. In the meantime the hurly-barly of Chinese politics provides its series of kaleidoscopic pictures for the daily onlooker. On the principle that in the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king, the National Assembly is arrogating to itself supreme power. It stands for action against bungling inactivity. As yet it is far from knowing its own mind, or being able to tell whither each further expression of the wish of the moment is leading it, for exercised mainly by the consciousness of a deadweight of opposition, it strives only to make headway against this mass of inertia by any means whatever. China does not stand to profit by the immediate result. The forces in the opposing camps are growing, and as a reconi incident in Tientsin shows, skirt mishes between the outposts are liable to take place at any time. For the present the crisis immediately threatening has been averted, but it must remain problematical whether the new attitude of reasonableness on the part of the Assembly will last long.
Meanwhile the practical progress made is Lanta Even in the spectacular suppression of opium there has been much cry and paratively little wool. "Toa recent telegram to "The Times" from Peking it is stated that " careful calculations estimate the reduction of cultivation at twenty-five per cent," and there is good reason to believe that in this brief sentence we have the first reliable record of what China has done in regard to the growth of the poppy. It is in itself a no mean achievement and would reflect credit upon the country, if the world had not been led by misguided and irresponsible enthusiasts into believing that the fexponsitie had been accomplished and that virtually opium was no
of China, As things ure to-day the ent grown in the greater part negotiations between the Chinese Government and Great Britain are in abeyance. The former, being more or less in possession of the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.