"That loss is often gain's disguise May us for loss console. My fellow-sufferers, take advice And keep your reason whole." In more than one crisis, the heart of the nation has cleaved to the Manchu house as the embodiment of law and order. The people chose to adhere to a tolerably good government rather than take the chance of a better one emerging from the strife of factions. Three things are required to confirm their loyalty: (1) the abolition of tonsure and pigtail, (2) the abandonment of all privileges in examinations and in the distribution of offices, (3) the removal of all impediments in the way of intermarriage. This last has been recently authorised by proclamation. It is not so easy for those who are in possession of the loaves and fishes to admit others to an equal share. If to these were added the abolition of a degrading [Page 279] badge, the Manchu dynasty might hope to be perpetual, because the Manchus would cease to exist as a people. CONCLUSIONS 1. More than once I have demanded the expulsion of the Manchus, and the partition of China. That they deserved it no one who knows the story of 1900 will venture to deny. It was not without reason that _Mene tekel_ and _Ichabod_ were engraved on the medal commemorating the siege in Peking. If I seem to recant, it is in view of the hopeful change that has come over the spirit of the Manchu Government. Under the leadership of Dowager Empress and Emperor, the people were more likely to make peaceful progress than under a new dynasty or under the Polish policy of division. 2. The prospect of admission to the full privileges of a member of the brotherhood of nations will act as an incentive to improvement. But the subjection of foreigners to Chinese jurisdiction ought not to be conceded without a probation as long and thorough as that through which Japan had to pass. In view of the treachery and barbarism so conspicuous in 1900--head-hunting and edicts to massacre foreigners--a probation of thirty years would not be too long. During that time the reforms in law and justice should be fully tested, and the Central Government should be held responsible for the repression of every tendency to anti-foreign riots. A government that encourages Boxers and other rioters as patriots does not merit an equal place in the [Page 280] congress of nations. The alternative is the "gunboat policy," according to which foreign powers will administer local punishment. If the mother of the house will not chastise her unruly children, she must allow her neighbours to do it.