4—Though Mr, Li is filled with indignation at what he conceives to be breaches of the Abdieation Agreement by the Manchu Emperor, hho seems to be curiously oblivious of the fact that he himself is consistently guilty of treating that Agreement with the grossest con tempt. This is strangely ineonsistent conduct for one who has become its self-appointed champion, As he ix well aware, it was specially provided in the Agreement that the Emperor was to be treated by the Republican Government with all the respect that it would accord to the sovereign of a foreign State on Chinese soil, and that he was to retain his full imperial title indefinitely. These particular stipulations (whatever may be said of others) the Republican Government has never failed to observe to the est of its ability. In the Chinese Journalistic world, the usage of the various newspapers is apt to follow their political affiliations. Some Papers clearly take the. civil view that staunch Republican principles are not incompatible with courtesy, and always refer to the Emperor' and the Imperial House in terms which besides being respectful have the additional advantage of being legally and technically correct. In their columns, the Emperor is described Ch'ing Ti, of which the nearest and" most' convenient vendering is "Manchu Emperor. Other papers, owned by political factions or interests whose view seems to bag that in this glorious and emancipated age of liberty, equality and fraternity (or perhaps I should say "comradeship") all honorary appellations and distinctions of rank must be scrupulously ignored by every good democrat, take evident pleasure in referring to the Emperor with deliberate discourtesy. In the case of the foreign newspapers, the inconsistencies of their references to the Manchu Emperor are probably due, in most cases, to sheer ignorance. For many years they usually spoke of him as "The Boy Emperor" and "The Young Emperor," terms which in em selves are inoffensive enough but neeessarily lose their appositeness with the passing years, Well-informed correspondents now usually write correctly of "the Manchu Em-error;" but even important organs such as the "North-China Daily vay" and the "Peking and Tien tsin Times" still often use the technically incorrect term) "Ex-Emperor." This, I suppose, is mainly due to the fact that in europe we have had no experience -avereign who after abdication thronement still retains, with the express concurrence of the revolution my Government which isplaced him, the legal right to the of King or Emperor. But the syrangement whereby the Mencha Emperor retains the full imperial
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.