the hundred government members
standing up against the imperious pressure of public opinion. In late
October the Assembly {108} unanimously petitioned the Throne to hasten the
programme of constitutional government. The day this petition was
presented it was currently rumored in Peking that unless the Prince
Regent should yield the people would refuse to pay taxes. But he
yielded. The trouble now is that he did not yield enough to satisfy
the public, and there is every indication that he will have to yield
again, in spite of the alleged unalterableness of the present plan,
which allows a parliament in 1913 instead of in 1916, as originally
promised. A parliament within eighteen months seems a safe prediction
as I write this.

It also seems safe to prophesy that the powers of the parliament will
be wisely used. In local affairs the Chinese practically established
the rule of the people centuries before any European nation adopted
the idea. Nominally, the local magistrate has had almost arbitrary
power, but practically the control has been in the hands of the
village elders. When they have met and decided on a policy, the
magistrate has not dared run counter to it. In much the same fashion,
governors and viceroys of provinces have been controlled and kept in
check. Thus centuries of practical self-government in local affairs
have given the Chinese excellent preparation for the new departure in
national affairs. What is proposed is not a new power for the people
but only an enlargement or extension of powers they already exercise.

Parliamentary government is the one great accomplishment the Chinese
people are now interested in, because they propose to make it the tool
with which to work out the other Herculean tasks that await them.
Happy are they in that they may set about these tasks inspired by the
self-confidence begotten of one of the greatest moral achievements of
modern times. I refer, of course, to the almost marvellous success of
their anti-opium crusade which I have already discussed.

Mr. Frederick Ward, who has just returned from a visit to many
provinces, finding in all the same surprising success {109} in enforcing
anti-opium regulations, declares: "It is the miracle of the Middle
Kingdom and a lesson for the world."'

China's next great task is the education of her people, and the remedy
for pessimism here is to compare her present condition, not with that
of other nations, but with her own condition t