he modernists' attempt to abolish the Chinese New Year estival and to adopt the Western calendar. Most of the oorer classes of Peking's inhabitants have "eaten bitteress" more than once since 1900; their houses have been lundered, and their queues cut off, in the name of new nd strange gods; but neither revolutions nor Presidential andates can ever make them follow after these gods, or dead them to doubt the wisdom of their own ancestral ways. Higher up the scale also, amongst the literati and the ew-style mandarins of the Parliament, if you look beneath he transparent surface of make-believe Republicanism, ou find continual evidence of the same "unbroken continuity of ancient traditions" in the grim struggle for lace and pelf and patronage that goes on eternally about and around the seat of government. The outward and isible forms of authority are changed, but the character the men who wield it and many of the men themselves gemain the same as in the days of the great Tzu Hsi. Plus a change, plus c'est la même chose, or, to put it in the words f an English philosopher, "from the upheaval of a revoluon the old shibboleths emerge, with new men to utter hem." The Dragon Throne has disappeared in the turmoil, ven as dynasties have gone down in the past, but all the Essential features of the inveterate struggle are still as he laws of the Medes and Persians. The names and var-cries of the partisans are altered, but their methods emain, the same as they were in the days of the Hans nd the Mings. The uncertainty and unrest which have listurbed the seats of the mighty ever since Young China rasped its chance at the time of the Manchu débâcle, he atmosphere of treasons, stratagems and spoils that las since pervaded the headquarters of government at Peking and in the provinces, all these are nothing new h the history of China; they are merely symptomatic f the periodical paroxysms which occur whenever the trong hand of authority is relaxed, for lack of the right kind of ruler. To-day, because the people are as sheep without a shepherd, the struggle for supremacy between ambitious chieftains and their rival factions goes on, just as it did in the days of the Three Kingdoms; but its leaders have acquired a new sort of "world sense and very shrewd idea of the value of modern catchwords, which have provided new and effective war-cries for their Essentially sordid strife. For the benefit of the gallery Overseas, they shout lustily about Constitutions, Parliaments and militarism. But whether the leading figures

VOL. LXXVI

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be Sun Yat-sen and Tang Shao-yi, Yuan Shih-k'ai ands Liang Shih-yi, Chang Hsün and the old brigade, Tuan Chi-jui and the Anfu Club, or Chang Tso-lin and the Chih faction, the causes and results of the strife are ever the same, and must remain so until, by process of exhaustion a new ruler shall emerge strong enough and wise enough to govern the country as it needs and asks to be governed that is to say, by a benevolent form of despotism which shall conform to the Confucian traditions, and by virtu of institutions adapted to the structural character and genius of the race. It is surely significant to note tha all the "elder statesmen," whose names command 0 measure of respect amidst the tumult of the swashbuckler and the word-spinners, are men whose sympathies have been unmistakably identified with the maintenance of the Confucian system and the patriarchal order of government The deep-rooted prestige of the orthodox literati is suffi ciently indicated by Hsu Shih-chang's occupancy of the Presidential Mansion, for this venerable ex-Viceroy is not only an avowed Monarchist but, like Yuan Shih-k'ai he believes implicitly in the moral superiority of China's political system over that of the West. Like the great Empress-Dowager, he cannot conceive of any sound states manship professing to ignore the "three fundamental bonds and the five moral obligations," which are the per manent foundations of the Chinese social edifice, "as the sun and moon, for ever enlightening the world." And this same faith is held, deep down in their hearts, by those who lead their factions to fight in the name of a still-born Constitution or a lawless Parliament, by the hungry office seekers of the capital and the satraps of the provinces Even amongst the younger men there are signs of a reaction in favour of the classical tradition.

o

Another feature wherein the present-day mandarins.com form to the old-established type is their individual an collective timidity in the face of any public agitation partisan attack. Nothing has emphasized this character istic of the ruling class more forcibly than the pitifu collapse of the Government last year, when the student of the capital and of Shanghai raised their clamour for the dismissal of Tsao Ju-lin and his pro-Japanese colleagues in the Cabinet. The fear which overtook the tajen of the Ministries when the students vented their feelings by burning Tsao's house was obviously panic, due to atavistic causes that are bred in the very bones of the East, the rich man's fear for the loss of his hoarded wealth. Let there

but a shadow of sudden tumult or alarm, and the andarin's first instinct is to conciliate and to temporize, hilst he seeks a place of safety for his family and his ortable possessions. The students' strike and demonrations were quelled, and the turbulent youths placated, ya make-believe dismissal of the offending Ministers, with the immediate result that, all over the country, the babes nd sucklings of the Mission schools were led to consider hemselves as a power in the land. But before a serious risis of political disturbance, such as General Chang Hsün's rief restoration of the Manchu dynasty in July 1917, or the Anfu Club's fight for supremacy last August, when he issues at stake are likely to lead to armed conflict and romiscuous looting, the ruling passion of the mandarin xpresses itself, rapidly and by common consent, in movedent of heavy-laden carts from all parts of the city to he shelter of the Legation quarter. How many times, I onder, have Na Tung's gold bars and Hu Wei-te's curios ound refuge in the sanctuary which the Boxer colleagues f these worthies did their best to destroy in 1900 ? At uch times of tumult, the foreign Banks and the Wagonsits Hotel become literally safety-vaults for the officials' yealth. It is a strange commentary on the chaotic conlition of China under the Republic, that the very same. fficials who profess to share Young China's enthusiasm or the recovery of "sovereign rights" and the abolition extra-territoriality are the first to fly for safety to the rotection of the Legation guards. As a place of residence or Chinese millionaires en retraite, Peking, in spite of these uards and of its social and lucrative opportunities, is not sfashionable as Shanghai or Tientsin; and it is safe to ay that if it were not for the sanctuary available in the egation quarter, a good many of those who now labour or (or against) the State would not face the risks of official fe at the capital.

As regards the political activities of the student class, I ound amongst foreigners in close touch with them (notably he American Y.M.C.A.) a general tendency to regard he movement as genuinely spontaneous and proof of the. ncreasing national consciousness and patriotism of the rising generation as a whole and of the "Western-learning contingent in particular. One earnest Y.M.C.A. worker, with whom I witnessed and discussed the great procession of boy and girl politicians last January at Peking, to protest against the proceedings of Japan in Shantung, was of opinion that the final result of these demonstrations would

1

gitation against the Government, and the North China Daily Mail declared that even foreigners had received ayment from this fund to assist in these "spontaneous anifestations of political consciousness!

he heart of m

In its main thoroughfares of trade and traffic Peking resents an appearance of animation and prosperity, commed with a very marked improvement in civic adminisration. Considering the general state of unrest that has revailed since the Revolution, and all the alarms and xcursions that the capital has experienced; remembering he condition of listless destitution in which its citizens ved and moved in the years following the havoc of the Boxers, one is agreeably surprised at the city's air of cheerful well-being, at the excellence of its roads, the smart appearnce of the police, the liveliness of trade in its marts and harkets, and the generally comfortable appearance of the han in the street. Indeed, in the main artery of traffic, hat runs from the railway terminus at the Chienmên to city, it is only the broad outlines that emind one of the Peking of pre-Boxer days. The oldme scavengers are gone-the gaunt pigs, famished dogs nd human gatherers of offal that used to scour the noisome treets and garbage heaps of old; gone are the human - carecrowe that used to lay the dust with the overflow of the ewers; and gone, or almost gone, the sorrowful army of haimed and leprous beggars that cried for alms in the ates of the city and on the outskirts of the temples. The ld, springless cart, with its powerful Szechuan mule and he high narrow wheels that cut the roads to ribbons, is fanishing fast, ousted by the automobiles of the great and y jinrickshas of innumerable types. I do not mean to uggest that, in the matter of smells and squalor, Peking 8 not still a very medieval spot, but there have been some very energetic new brooms at work in the past ten years, nd some very effective window-dressing has been done. The improvements that have been made in the matter of roads alone prove that, given sufficient incentive and money, the Chinese are quite capable of collective effort and successful organization in the public service. At Isinanfu and Tainanfu you may see the same lesson writ large across two very ancient cities; in these matters, China's trouble lies not in discovering new sources of useful energy, but only in maintaining their output. Thus, for example, the Peking police have been well disciplined and