"Already, in the opening debates of these Provincial Assemblies, one apprehends the coming chaos, one hears the first whispering of the approaching storm. Peking, panoplied in ignorance and petrified in medieval statecraft, trifles with Demos at its doors, evidently hoping that the Assemblies will consume their own smoke, and that the Mandarin may be preserved by the time-honoured device of holding the balance between contending classes. But the spirits which the Vermilion Pencil has called from the Celestial deep, though elected with all possible precautions of ‘silkcoated’ franchise, and under the close direction of Viceroys and Governors, show signs of scant respect for the Central Government and of little sympathy for its difficulties. Already, within a fortnight of their birth, many of the Assemblies have passed resolutions denouncing several of the Government’s pet proposals—e. g., the opium monopoly, the stamp tax, and the foreign loan for the Hankau-Canton and Hankau-Szechuan Railways. In the case of the stamp tax, 15 provinces have expressed the opinion, and have induced the local officials in many cases to endorse it, that the proposed levy is impracticable, so that, in the words of the native Press, 'its imposition is deferred and the Ministry of Finance is at its wits’ end.’ Concerning the vexed question of the railway loan, the Hupei Assembly is reported to have endorsed, without a dissentient, their chairman’s declaration that the Government’s scheme should be resisted ‘to the death.’ "The spirit which animates these Assemblies is evidently very similar to that which speaks through the vernacular Press; iconoclastic, patriotic—in the sense that it denounces everything foreign—but lacking, so far, in intelligent leadership and constructive policy. Their attitude towards the Central Government is generally one of scarcely veiled contempt. I cannot illustrate better its general tendency than in the words of a native journalist who, in a recent criticism of the Grand Council, congratulated these rulers of China on their remarkable longevity, but observed that ‘there is little hope of longevity for an Empire that is governed by such incompetent survivals.’"