CHINA.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXVI, Issue 13524, 4 November 1911, Page 4

CHINA.

The voice of constitutionalism is being heard in China, and apparently will no longer bo bushed. To-day’s cables stale that an edict lias been issued instructing the Assembly to draft a Constitution, and the Assembly insists on the suppression of all Manchu prerogatives and the abolition of eunuchs and queues. All this indicates the death-knell of tho absolute despotism which previous rulers of China have enjoyed and of the corruption which for centuries lias been rampant throughout tho Empire. Furthermore, the Assembly lias telegraphed tho leader of tho rebels, urging the suspension of hostilities pending negotiations and offering a free pardon to tho revolutionaries. The latter is in a sense the most significant step taken hy tho Assembly. In China, it is not the custom to lie conciliatory toward revolt. On the contrary, tho Eastern method, generally is to avoid it by drastic safeguards, which accounts for the late Sultan of Turkey keeping the present one imprisoned for years, for the violent deaths of alternative rulers in Afghanistan and Morocco, and for tho disgraces to which Li Hung Chang and Yuan Shi Kai, as influential men with the people, were subjected to in China. What the progressive proposal moans, therefore, is that the rebellion is so promising that its leaders must be negotiated with. But probably it is too late for that. There arc continual disaentions in the Imperial ranks, and the revolutionaries command tha Yang-tze for hundreds of miles. The importance of Hie conquest is in tho fact that the people of the Yang-tzo provinces are amongst tho ?nost alert and enlightened of tho whole population, while the control of the trade routes naturally gives an immense advantage. The question is will the revolutionaries bo willing to call a halt in their victorious march. Tho only answer they have given ao far to tho Assembly's request for an armistice is increased activity in the revolt.