By a treaty with Japan, concluded December, 1905, China consented to lease to Japan the Kwangtung peninsula, at the southern extremity of which are Port Arthur and Dalny, formerly held by Russia under lease from China, and concede to Japan the control of the railway on the peninsula northward as far as Changchin. China also conceded to Japan the right to build a railway from Antung on the Yalu River to Mukden, the ancient capital of Manchuria, provided, however, that at the end of a certain period the road may be purchased by China. More important is the fact that China agreed in the treaty to open to the world’s commerce and trade sixteen principal ports and cities in Manchuria, including Harbin, or Kharbin, the modern Russian capital of the province and its most important railway center. CHINA: A. D. 1905-1908. The stir of new ideas. Imperial Commission to study Representative Systems of Government. Signs of fruit from it. Reformative movements. The Constitutional Programme set forth in August, 1908. Nine years of approach to a Promised Constitution. A significant token of the dawning in China of a changed state of mind respecting the western world of Europe and America, and its very different development of scientific knowledge and of social institutions, was afforded in the fall of 1905, when an imperial commission, headed by Prince Tsai-Tse, was sent abroad to study representative systems of government. The Commission returned in the following July, and in August a committee of high dignitaries, with Prince Ch’ing for its chairman, was appointed to consider the report it had submitted on administrative reforms. The outcome, soon afterwards, was an imperial edict which recognized a "lack of confidence between the highest and the lowest, between the throne and ministers and the masses," and went so far as to say that "foreign countries become wealthy and powerful by granting a constitution to the masses and allowing suffrage to all." While intimating that China must look forward to a similar admission of the masses to some voice in the government, the edict set forth the prior need of many reforms, in the official system, in the laws, in education, in the finances, and in the army and police. To begin the undertaking of such reforms, Prince Tsai-Tse was put at the head of a committee for dealing with the official system, and before the year closed there were several changes of importance introduced, tending towards more simplicity of methods in public business and more centering of responsibilities. Examinations in Western subjects of knowledge began to replace the old conventional examinations in classic Chinese literature, as tests for admission and promotion in official service, and eagerness was shown in the opening of schools and colleges that approached the European