scheme for introduction of
universal primary education in Canton to be completed in three steps.

These reforms are provincial and local. They are part of a general
movement against centralization and toward local autonomy which is
gaining headway all over China, a protest against the appointment of
officials from Peking and the management of local affairs in the
interests of factions--and pocketbooks--whose chief interest in local
affairs is what can be extracted in the way of profit. For the only
analogue of provincial government in China at the present time is the
carpet bag government of the south in the days following our civil
war. These things explain the restiveness of the country, including
central as well as southern provinces, under Peking domination. But
they do not explain the setting up of a new national, or federal
government, with the election of Mr. Sun Yat Sen as its president. To
understand this event it is necessary to go back into history.

In June, 1917, the parliament in Peking was about to adopt a
constitution. The parliament was controlled by leaders of the old
revolutionary party who had been at loggerheads with Yuan and with the
executive generally. The latter accused them of being obstructionists,
wasting time in discussing and theorizing when the country needed
action. Japan had changed her tactics regarding the participation of
China in the war, and having got her position established through the
Twenty-one Demands, saw a way of controlling Chinese arsenals and
virtually amalgamating the Chinese armies with her own through
supervising China's entrance into the war. The British and French were
pressing desperately for the same end. Parliament was slow to act, and
Tang Shao Yi, Sun Yat Sen and other southern leaders were averse,
since they regarded the war as none of China's business and were upon
the whole more anti-British than anti-German--a fact which partly
accounts for the share of British journals in the present press
propaganda against the Canton government. But what brought matters to
a head was the fact that the constitution which was about to be
adopted eliminated the military governors or tuchuns of the provinces,
and restored the supremacy of civil authority which had been destroyed
by Yuan Shi Kai, in addition to introducing a policy of
decentralization. Coached by members of the so-called progressive
party which claimed to be constitutionalist and which had a
factionalist int