nge d'elire_
goes forth, it will rend the veil of ages. It implies the conferment
on the people of power hitherto unknown in their history. What a
commotion will the ballot-box excite! How suddenly will it arouse
the dormant
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intellect of a brainy race! But it is premature to speculate.

In 1868 the Mikado granted his subjects a charter of rights, the
first article of which guarantees freedom of discussion, and engages
that he will be guided by the will of the people. In China does
not the coming of a parliament involve the previous issue of a
Magna Charta?

It is little more than eight years since the restoration, as the
return of the Court in January, 1902, may be termed. In this period,
it is safe te assert that more sweeping reforms have been decreed
in China than were ever enacted in a half-century by any other
country, if one except Japan, whose example the Chinese profess to
follow, and France, in the Revolution, of which Macaulay remarks
that "they changed everything--from the rites of religion to the
fashion of a shoe-buckle."

Reference will here be made to a few of the more important innovations
or ameliorations which, taken together, made the reign of the Empress
Dowager the most brilliant in the history of the Empire. The last
eight years have been uncommonly prolific of reforms; but the tide
began to turn after the peace of Peking in 1860. Since that date
every step in the adoption of modern methods was taken during the
reign or regency of that remarkable woman, which dated from 1861
to 1908.

As late as 1863 the Chinese Government did not possess a single
fighting ship propelled by steam. Steamers belonging to Chinese
merchants were sometimes employed to chase pirates; but they were not
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the property of the state. The first state-owned steamers, at least
the first owned by the Central Government, was a flotilla of gunboats
purchased that year in England by Mr. Lay, Inspector-General of
Maritime Customs. Dissatisfied with the terms he had made with the
commander, whom he had bound not to act on any orders but such as
the Inspector should approve, the Government dismissed the Inspector
and sold the ships.

In the next thirty years a sufficient naval force was raised to
justify the appointment of an admiral; but in 1895 the whole fleet
was destroyed by the Japanese, and Admiral Ting committed suicide.
At present there is a squadron under each viceroy; but all combined
would har