Lest one should be led to condemn the confidence shown by her leaders and the makers of the Republic, however, we must remember that into the most populous nation of the world reform had come in four months which came to other countries who fought for their liberty only after years of fearful war. We are inclined, perhaps, we who expect more from the Chinese than perhaps we ourselves are capable of, to ridicule the efforts of this Republican Party, and to believe that all going on around us is a mere political make-believe. We are inclined, perhaps, almost totally to discount the ability of the members of the Republican party, men who, for the most part, have risen from the mediocrity of the nation. And I confess myself to have been during these months of active war among the number who pessimistically looked out upon a changing China. But, now that the critical days of the Revolution are passed, even the most cautious European in China--I mean cautious in regard to snatching at political straws which float down the stream of Chinese national life--even he must, if he be unbiased, acknowledge that history can show us no parallel to what is daily going on around us. I am perfectly aware that many of the ambitions of the Republican party as it now is are at present unrealisable. I know that many of the old-time practices and corruptions against which their leaders so vehemently proclaimed will in the very nature of things be found necessary to continue. I cannot, however, discount the extreme sincerity of the main leaders, men who with no other motive than that of benefiting their fellow-nationals, are prepared to work hard and unostentatiously for the permanent good of their country. These are the real reformers. Many of them for years have been China's real reformers, but their {284} light has been under the national bushel. About them little has been known, and as often as not they have been despised as a dangerous faction in the country. In the press they have been cried down. The Manchu Government have been hunting them to do them to death--the leaders, at all events. There have been thousands of smaller men, however, sent abroad to light the fuse; but all of them have had their lights under the national bushel. It has come, in the main, in the march of education, and this morning, looking back over the years, it is a wonderful thing to be able to have in this document the product of the toiling of years of China's enlightened educated sons.