Chinese industry, thrift, inteligence, eagerness to learn, hospital- 68, ity to Western material and political civilization, are such as to afford abundant encouragement to the belief. that a period of tutelage need not be long if only a fair start could be given to an evolutionary development pf the power of the governed. And for a civil leadership the native! intelligentsia-—some of it highly educated—affords a very fair] amount of fine and worthy personnel, But the start is held back, and revolutionary character is forced upon the development by the inability of any one to invent an argument which would appeal to the possessor of arbitrary power a reason why he should voluntarily accept, and even cultivate, a restriction of his power in the interest of those under his rule. The militarist naturally prefers to fight for his preferential position as long: as he can make war personally profitable, Tt may be that we Occidentals cannot do anything in the premise But it is a pity if that is so. And, at all events, let us not make a merit of refusal to lend a hand to {free a floundering people from cruel exploitation by the unrestrained human nature of their native rulers, because, singly or collectively, our nations are neither fit nor willing to do the job.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.