"'Talking from a personal point of view, she would rather retire and be quiet. Some things happened while I was at the palace and we would ask her opinion. She would say: "I don't want to say anything because I do not think it is right." She would say: "I am not capable of telling you and cannot say anything at all." She does not want to run the Government at all. This I am sure of. The only thing she {294} wants is peace. She certainly has suffered all her life. Although she was her niece, the old Empress treated her in a very mean way.' "'Has she any real power?' "'No. But she doesn't want any. We were talking one day about different things. During one of the Audiences the Old Empress-Dowager told her to take the foreign ladies to the refreshments. After this audience was over I asked her how she would like to act in the Empress-Dowager's place after the Empress-Dowager's death. And she said to me: "It depends on circumstances. If I am the Empress of China, I would, but not as the Empress-Dowager." That is, if her husband was Emperor and she Empress. "If I had a son I would have to depend on him. I have no son, and if that was the case, I would have to adopt one and it would be the same thing as the Empress-Dowager and Kwang Hsu.' "'Will you please describe the personality and character of the ex-Regent and his brothers.' "'Ex-Regent Tsai Feng; he is a very stupid man--a weak-minded man--very conservative. No one can talk reform to him. Some one did try it once just for fun and he said: "Our ancestors did not do that and I do not see why we should." Of course he favours the Conservative party. His two brothers are not like that. They have both been abroad, in Europe and America too. But of course they are not so overloaded with brains either. They are the three I mentioned a while ago as being so poor. All they want, these two brothers, is pleasure. There is one thing I want to say; when I was abroad a young Prince, Tsai Chen--came over to King Edward's coronation. Passing through Paris he came to see us. I was very much surprised. At that time there were very few progressive people. Four months after, I returned to Peking and found him just the other way and the same case with the two brothers of the ex-Regent. When they were abroad they got their heads full of reform for China, and of making China like Europe and America, and as soon as they got back to China they were satisfied with the way the people live. I was much surprised. I asked him once what was the matter. He said: "We have to live in this country and be that way and must be satisfied with it."' "'Who is, then, the real power among the Manchu nobility?' "'That depends now. Just now no one has power. It was supposed to be the ex-Regent because he was the head.' "'Are the Manchus capable of regeneration?'