she was at the head of every movement
that partook of the character of reform. Foreign diplomacy has failed,
for want of a definite centre of volition and sensation to act upon. It
had no fulcrum for its lever. Hence only force has ever succeeded in
China. With a woman like the Empress might it not be possible really to
transact business?--Blackwood's Magazine.

IV

THE EMPRESS DOWAGER--AS A REACTIONIST

It was between November 1, 1897, and April 16, 1898, that Germany,
Russia, France and England wrested from the weak hands of the Emperor
Kuang Hsu the four best ports in the Chinese empire, leaving China
without a place to rendezvous a fleet. The whole empire was aroused to
indignation, and even in our Christian schools, every essay, oration,
dialogue or debate was a discussion of some phase of the subject, "How
to reform and strengthen China." The students all thought, the young
reformers all thought, and the foreigners all thought that Kuang Hsu
had struck the right track. The great Chinese officials, however, were
in doubt, and it was because of their doubt--progressives as well as
conservatives--that the Empress Dowager was again called to the throne.

Now may I request the enemies of the Empress Dowager to ask themselves
what they would have done if they had been placed at the head of their
own government when it was thus being filched from them? You say she
was anti-foreign--would you have been very much in love with Germany,
Russia, France and England under those circumstances? That she acted
unwisely in placing herself in the hands of the conservatives and
allying herself with the superstitious Boxers, we must all frankly
admit. But what would you have done? Might you not--I do not say you
would with your intelligence--but might you not have been induced to
have clutched at as great a log as the patriotic Boxers seemed to
present, if you had been as near drowning as she was?

"It is generally supposed," says one of her critics, "that Kang Yu-wei
suggested to the Emperor, that if he would render his own position
secure, he must retire the Empress Dowager, and decapitate Jung Lu." If
that be true, and I think it very reasonable, the condition must have
been desperate, when the reformers had to begin killing the greatest of
their opponents, and imprisoning those who had given them their power,
though neither of these at that time had raised a hand against them.
Have you noticed how ready we are to forgive