"If democracy be a dream, self-government is an illusion. There never has been and never will be any society, or any body, which is self-governed. We are not even free to wear the clothes our inclination suggests. Madame Fashion cuts the cloth and purchases the material. Government (to quote a French expression) is always an 'affair of two.' Like love-making, it is a matter of one yielding to the other. In the same way self-respect is not self-respect but the approbation of my lower to my Higher, the God within me. Self-control is not self-control, but the obedience of my passional nature to the Divine enshrined within. Self-government is not self-government, but the government of one part by another part, of the unfit by the fit, of the masses by the classes, of the uneducated by the educated. Anything else would be incompetence, injustice, not liberty. There cannot be equality and fraternity in government. There is much truth in Lao Tzu's paradox, 'When the people are difficult to control it is because they possess too much worldly wisdom.' Democracy is an idol many of its worshippers are ceasing to respect, and facts should be known before a temple to its honour is erected in China. What is wanted is an Autocracy in its proper place, not an autocracy of birth, of money, or of clamour, but an autocracy of character, of self-sacrifice, and ability. This is China's hour, a challenge to her strong men to devise something characteristic of herself, and not merely to imitate Western Constitutions. "If this is to be successfully accomplished, preconceived ideas must be kept fluid when the peacemakers meet in the coming Conference. Republicans must remember that to imagine a Democracy without an oppression is idle. Imperialists must consider that to interfere with the rights of another is wrong. Republicans must not forget that every democratic government rules by majorities, and that when the wishes of the minority are overridden an Autocracy in its wrong place has been substituted for Democracy. Imperialists must not lose sight of the truth that the yoke laid on the defeated party is no easier to bear because the coercion comes from an opposing political body and not from one or two accredited officials, and that coercion of any sort invites rebellion. Let both sides consider that wisdom does not always dwell with majorities. History supplies many instances where the minority of one was right and all the rest wrong. Being right, he might perhaps efface himself and yield to the general wish, but he cannot properly be coerced. If Democracy be right, then coercion is necessarily wrong, whether the pressure be exercised by individuals or majorities. "The proper basis for an orderly arrangement of men's common interests is that all concerned shall discuss in a friendly way with a {199} Vacant page?