THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1908. THE CHINESE DYNASTY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3049, 20 November 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1908. THE CHINESE DYNASTY.

The sudden and almost simultaneous deaths of the Emperor and EmpressDowager of China are likely to have far-reaching results upon the politics and the' progress of the Furthest East. The late Emperor was never anything but a nominal ruler, the late Empress-Dowager having irom his boyhood usurped authority and gathered the reins of power into her own hands.* This remarkable and unscrupulous woman was the bitter and indomitable enemy of European ideas, and was regarded as a party to the Boxer rising against the foreigners and to the attack upon the Legations at Pekin. Prince Chun, who has been accepted as Regent of China during the minority of the new Emperor, Pu-Yi, has been inclined to follow Japan in the introduction of such reforms and innovations as might tend to place China upon equal terms with the European Powers. The effect upon international politics of Prince Chun and his party coming into power may not be at once apparent, excepting in a greater disposition to remain on ,

triendly terms with the European nations. But the probabilities are that the Chinese Government will take cautious steps in the • direction of reforms which may satisfy the Chinese malcontents, and of changes which may give to China a military and naval strength more proportionate to her wealth and her population.