ABDICATION.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1338, 16 January 1912, Page 5

ABDICATION.

CHINESE REVOLUTION. THE MAIN PROBLEM. SHOCKING ACCOUNTS OF MURDER AND ARSON. By Telcerapn-Prese Aisociation-Copjrighl (Rec. January 15, midnight.) Peking, January 13. Tho Manchu soldiery and people of Peking have determined to throw in (heir lot with the Chinese. Secret meetings of Manchus of all classes were held and it was decided that abdication was necessary to save the country from chaos. The Dowager-Empress recognised that tho Government was powerless without a foreign loan. Ywn-Shih-Kai is sow negotiating wiih the Powers hoping that a loan will be procurable if contingent on abdication. If it is not forthcoming Tuan-Shih-Kai will retire with the Throne, otherwiso he will remain and make the besi arrangement possible. All the Princes were in favour of abdication, the main problem being how to ensure the security of their persons and property, and the payment of their pensions. The Imperial 'Family will still retain their family property and ancestral temples. It is proposed to locate the provisional Government headquarters at Tientsin, as the Republican Ministers fear to live in Peking. A telegram from the provinces gave a shocking account of murders, rape, and arson. A hundred women committed suicide in order to escape assaults. Many women, principally Manchus, have thrown themselves into wells at Shensi in order to escape violation. Murders and looting are of daily occurrence. Yuan-Shih-Kai slates that there have teen wholesale suicides of women in Hsiianhua, where bandits proclaimed a republic. The Shanghai revolutionaries are moving northwards by four routes. Twentyfive thousand have left Wuchang. THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLT. The Peking correspondent of tho "Times," writing on November 10, states: "I forward for publication a document of human interest. It is a letter written by a learned scholar, who has, largely self-taught, acquired an unusual knowledge of English. The writer is one of the most learned scholars in China, a man whose name is a household word. He has taken a lending part in the introduction of Western education into China. He has studied in England, and has translated into scholarly Chinese the n»st popular of modern British philosophical works." The writer of the letter referred to states:— "The remote and proximate causes of tho present revolt in mv country may be enumerated thus:—(l) The wretched incapability of tho Regent and his Ministers; (2) tho prejudicing and misleading of the Chinese public minds by the reverberation of the discontented journalists; (3) the incubation .of secret parties and rebellious students in Japan; (i) tho repeated famine round Yangtse and panic of commercial crisis and contraction of credit in different ports in late several years. These are the factors that operate together for the present calamity. The lotter proceeds: "But one thing to bo sure, according to my humble opinion, is that if they bo impulsive and go too far China will hence enter a miserable stage herself, and bo the cause of disturbance to the world at large. To say straightforwardly, China, as she is, is unfit for a totally different new form of Government such as tho Republic of America. Her people's temperament and their environments will at least require oO years of differentiation and assimilation before they are fit to do so. Republic has teen strongly advocated by ■ some harebrained revolutionists such as Sun Yat Sen himself and others; but it is opposed by everybody who possesses some common sense. By the Law of Evolution of Civilisation, the best, therefore, is to have a form of government one grade higher, that is, to remnin a monarchy, but limited, with suitable constitutions. Try to make its structure more flexible than before, so that it may adapt and progress. Tho Regent may be deposed, and if expedient the Infant Emperor may he compelled to abdicate, and ono gromn-up member of the Imperial family may bo elected in his place."