Revolt in China.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 99, 17 October 1911, Page 5

Revolt in China.

PROTECTION FOR FOREIGNERS. MORE TROOPS CO OVER TO REBELS. REBEL ARSENALS VERY BUSY. WARSHIPS PREPARING FOR BOMBARDMENT. By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. Received 10. 9.45 p.m. Pekin, October 10. Telegraphic communication with Changsba is restored. Changsha is reported safe. The consuls at Hankow are sending European women and children to Shanghai. Three thousand Ilonan troops, encamped at North Hankow, joined the revolutionaries. The rebel arsenal at Hanyang is working double shifts, turning out twenty-five thousand rounds of ammunition daily. A hundred and forty field pieces are ready. Two thousand revolutionaries have occupied Kiatmg. Four hundred rebels from Kiating are marching in the direction of Yachow. The revolutionaries consistently protect the churches, and are issuing passports to missionaries. Hankow is now isolated. The telegraphs are in the hands of the revolutionaries. Trains are stopped. The Chinese warships will issue a warning before bombarding the town. Foreigners will then leave. The foreign concessions in the British Consular archives have already been transferred to a gunboat. The Prefect of Suifu, fearing forcible ; opening of the prison, released the prisoners. THIRTY-THREE TROOP TRAINS. NORTHERN ARMY LOYAL. A FINANCIAL PANIC. Received 16, 11 p.m. London, October 16. » The Times Pekin correspondent reports that though an edict curtly orders Yuanshikai to Wuchang, and does not attempt any reparation for his dismissal, he accepts in a grave emergency the hardest post in the Empire. He is apparently confident of the loyalty of hit northern army, which is his creation.

Thirteen transport trains left Pekin and Paotingfu on Saturday and Sunday, eleven leave to-day, and ten on Tuesday. Altogether twenty thousand combatants will concentrate at the third station northwards of Hankow. The General Staff is confident the rebellion will soon be suppressed. They declare that the Hankow station is still in possession of loyal troops. A financial panic occurred at Pekin on Saturday. There were runs on the Government banks and the native cashshops. but the disturbance was only temporary. WAR OFFICE WANTS MONEY. FOREIGN BANKERS OBJECT. Received Ifi. 11 p.m. London. October 10. The War Office's overtures to four foreign banking groups for a short loan to provide for the payment of the northern troops, met with objections, one of which was that if financing was begun it must be continued, although the future was uncertain. Secondly, the aim of securing loans would obviously induce the revolutionaries to believe that foreigners were contributing to suppress the revolution; and thirdly the Throne should be compelled to disgorge its hoarded millions. ENTHUSIASTIC CHINESE. REBEL LEADERS MANIFESTO. Ottawa. October 13. The flag of the Chinese Republic is being flown in the Chinese quarters at Victoria. There was great enthusiasm when the news of the probable success of the revolutionists was published. It is known that arrangements have been made by Sunyatsen to despatch shipments of arm* from the Pacific coast to China. New York. October IS. A manifesto has been issued bv the Chinese leader. Sunyatsen, appealing to all friendly nations to observe neutrality during the revolution in China, and promising full observance of all treaties with foreign Powers. It declares that the object of the revolution is the overthrow of the corrupt Manchu regime. ft believed that Sunyatsen is about •f < it part to China, although a price Ji:i- been set on his head. WING OYER TO THE REBELS. Berlin. October 10. An unconfirmed report is published here that two battalions of modern drilled troops at Tsingtao mutinied, apparently in sympathy with Sunyatsen: also that active revolutionary propaganda are being carried on at Tsinalfu. A MILLION LOAN. London, October 15. The bankers who were negotiating a million loan for China have notified China of their acceptance of the currency reform scheme, and that the loan will be issued within half a year unless force majeure intervenes. THE REFORM MOVEMENT. HISTORIC BLOOD-STAINED PETITION. Dr. J. Dillon, in the .Tnlv is-ue of the Contemporary Review, brings together the main facts in the extraordinary present-day situation in China. "China is waking up." lie savs. "Her people are becoming alert and active. As soon as the ethnic torrent, penned in

for ages is in movement, elements may be brought to the service which we, in Europe, had no knowledge. Surprises of a serious nature may also be in store for us. One thing, however, we may rest absolutely assured of: What will eventally take place -will differ 'toto coclo' from what the best European authorities anticipated. Already the curtain has been lifted, and the progress to the play is beginning. "Constitutionalism, and the acute nationalism which is so often one of its concomitants, are spreading throughout the Empire. The central government is pithless and can make no stand against the 'reform' movement, which, in one of its aspects, is also an anti-foreign movement.

The Pekin authorities promised to convoke a constitutional Chamber not later than the year 1917, and meanwhile they created in every province a special consultative Diet. But one of the first acts of this body was to petition the Throne to summon the representatives of the nation at an earlier date. The reply wa» negative. Nothing daunted, the reformers inaugurated an elaborate propaganda throughout the country in favor of their demands. Vast numbers joined the movement. In June last a new petition was drafted, presented, and rejected as before. MOVED TO FRENZY. "Fiery speeches inflamed the passions of the 'reformists,' which manifested themselves in weird forms. A third petition was drawn up, and while speeches on the subject were being delivered the delegates of students' organisation broke into the Hall of Deliberations and ta- i dressed those present in the wild language of passion. By way of enhancing the impression produced, they resorted to the aid of self-mutilation; the first of the students cut off one of his fingers; the second drove a dagger through the palm of his hand; a third was about to slice open his alklomen, but was hindered. He contrived, however, to cut out a piece of muscle from his forearm. His blood spurted out on the floor and besplashed the petition. The assembly was moved to frenzy. A resolution was unanimously passed to present the petition to the Regent at once, and to present it with the stains of human gore upon it. RADICALISM IN CHINA. "The provincial delegates thereupon wended towards the Palace in a body. The Regent happened just then to be in the inner apartments to which access is stringently prohibited. But the petitioners cried out tumultuous]) - for some person in authority, causing such an uproar and keeping it up so persistently all night, camping in the Palace, that at last an official to whom the name of Home Secretary is given, volunteered to deliver the petition to the Regent. After a repetition of scenes which are compared to those that were enacted at Versailles at the outset of the French Revolution, the Prince Regent caved in. He promised to pass on the document to the Senate and ask that body to report to him on the subject. "Now the Senate, which was convoked for the first time about seven months ago, is the most conservative public body in the China of to-day. Onehalf of its members were nominated by the Prince Regent, who selected them from among State dignitaries, trusty officials, princes of the blood, and men eminent in science and letters. The other half consists of individuals chosen by the proyincial councils, whose members have to possess a very high property qualification. Yet that conservative assembly inaugurated its labors last year by complaining of the inadequacy of the rights it possesses and asking for more. CHINESE NATIONALISM. "In consequence of its Radical propensities and subversive influence, the Regent dissolved it at the end of three mouths, but the Senate evaded the law by appointing a permanent committee of j a number of its own memhcis to sit mi Pekin in the intervals of the sessions. In the matter of this petition the Senate. in lieu of supporting the Government. upheld the demands of the reformists, and the Regent felt constrained to issue an edict promising to convoke a constitutional Chamber in the year 191'3 instead of 1917. but he declared as an offset that it would be absolutely impossible to frame an electoral law and obtain a list of persons entitled to vote before MM 3. "With the recent example of Russia. Turkey and even Persia before our eyes, it is natural to assume that whatever else the Chinese Parliament may be, it will assuredly be patriotic. And Chinese patriotism will be interpreted by Europeans to mean the persecution of foreigners. Tile cultured nations of the world want a people of customers in the Far East, not a people of competitors. Competition of trade and industry, even in China itself, will be set down—nav. is already being set down as a crime against civilisation. No wonder the Chinese are indignant. But the culturebearing nations have only themselves to blame for what is coming. It was tliey who insisted peremptorily on China joining the ranks of civilised nations, and it was they who at the same time systematically put upon her indignities which even barbarians would not brook. Having seen these things with my own eyes in China, if can speak of them at first hand."