Nov. 28. 3
Dr. Hearnshaw, who is professor of history in London University, has been amusing himself by writing on the it's" of history in "John o'London's Weekly." If Blucher had not come up in time at Waterloo. If Columbus had not discovered America, etc, It opens up Wide field for speculation and, though it may be said to lead nowhere, it is, interesting to dream of'what might have been. Any country and any period of time might be taken asa theme around which to weave this web of make-believe and we propos to apply it to recent Chinosa history and see whereto it will lead us. Kuang Hsu, the last Emperor who reigned of the Manchu dynasty—for Hsuan Tung came to the throne whew he was two and abdicated when he was six—was born in 1871 and was permitted to begin his reign in 1889, Six years later came the disastrous defeat of China by Japan and this ey marked the beginning of estrangement from his aunt,' the forceful Empress Dowager, who blamed him—quite wrongly—for beginning the war without consulting her. The Emperor was deeply humiliated, as was the whole country, and began ponder some method of retriaving the fallen fortunes of his country, He asked the Viceroys in the provinces to recommend able. men who would counsel him how to reform the laws and strengthen the State. 'To him there was recommended Kang Vu-wei, then known as the mo= der sage because of his learn ing and good character. Foreign books were purchased from Shanghai and, for the first time in history, a' Chinese Emperor believed that there was some~ thing good that might come out from a foreign source, A little company of reformers gathered in Poking and were a kind of inner cabinet and in 1898 were issued a series of reform edicts that were of a revolutionary nature. Temples were to ba turned into schools, for the great Viceroy, Chang Chih-tung, had issued a trumpet call in his book, "Learn." Up till that date China believed she had nothing to learn from any quarter but when the leading statesman of the Empire, himself holding the Hanlin degree, the highest literary distinction the nation had to offer, warned his countrymen that. they must humble themselves to learn or perish notice had to be taken of the phenemenon. But there was a powerful phalanx leagued together in opposition to reform. 'There was the Court and the eunuchs, eagee to keep the perquisites of power. There was the Manchu clan stubborn in defence of theft privileges. Above all there was the "Old, Buddha". watching jealously the rising' tid threatened to submerge beneath its waves, The reform
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.