Reuter's report upon the absence of Chinese M.P.'s from Peking, and their apparent shyness of the capital, is merely history repeating itself. In his " History of Scotland" Andrew Long noted a similar tendency on the part of M.P.'s in the stormy days of that country's career. 'A constitutional opposition," he remarked, "scarcely existed. Under the later Stuarts the opposition usually stayed away, it being more than their lives were worth to come within reach of the nobles in power." It is hardly 60 bad as that in Peking to-day, but to say the least the members find their absence a convenienc, and as a study in the evolution of constitutional government their attitude is interesting, though by no means unusual. Curiously enough, too, the members of the Peking body are not alone in their distrust of the party in power. for Shanghai suid to be equally blessed with the presence of many members of the Canton parliament.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.