THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1909. REFORM MOVEMENT IN CHINA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9594, 14 September 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1909. REFORM MOVEMENT IN CHINA.

The veteran Prince Ito, who negotiated the Anglo-Japanese alliance for his country, and who is still the leading statesman of Japan, is much exercised in his mind on account of the reform movement in China, and the prospect of a Constitution being granted to the Chinese. Prince Ito foresees that the place of the Par East will be imperilled if a Constitution is granted to the Chinese, and if they prove unequal to the task of working it—a contingency which he considers highly probable. Apparently he entertains the opinion that the breakdown of a constitutional regime would lead to disturbances, which would introduce the evil of foreign intervention, from which China has already suffered severely. However, the Imperial rescript whichjpromised a Constitution to the people of China, set forth that nine years were to elapse before the first Chinese Parliament is j summoned, and that in the meantime the people are to.be fitted for the boon by an extension of public education. Much may be done in nine years by suitably-directed effort, even in a country which has stagnated for so many centuries as China. The history of Japan during the last 40 years is the best proof that even the age-long frosts of unyielding conservatism can be made to melt away under the warm vitalising influences of modern ideals of liberty and self-government. It is tiue that the enormous area ot the Chinese Empire will make the parliamentary machine cumbrous to work, as compared with that of Japan, but if a parliamentary regime—of a kind—is possible even in Russia, there is no necessity to despair of China. Russia also is a vast empire, with defective communications, and outside the large cities ; the Russians are just as conservative and far more illiterate than the Chinese. No doubt it is very undesirable from Japan's point of view that the Chinese should be granted a Constitution. When Turkey was governed by an effete autocracy, she was marked for dismemberment by her most powerful neighboux'S. But when the Young Turks overthrew the autocrat, and substituted a regime of self-government, the greedy nations that were waiting and watching found their hopes doomed to be disappointed, China ■

still occupies a very similar position to that which.' Turkey occupied before the bloodless revolution. But when the Chinese have once tasted the sweets of 'self-government, it is more than doubtful whether they will submit to be exploited by Japan, which is the destiny that many Japanese, in-.luding possibly Prince Ito, would like to see in store for them.