The constitutional issue in China is no simple problem of reaction versus progressivism. The vast majority of the population is not literate, and is unprepared to deal with a complicated machinery of opinion and election. Wire-pulling, corruption, adherence to form instead of deed--these are all widespread in China. Democracy abruptly established might frustrate further improvement, since sham-democracy would have established itself. The opponents of sudden action also press the telling point that the common people do not know they want immediate democracy, although believing in the term as a symbol and approving its trial application. The Generalissimo remains clearly mistrustful about creating new organs of opinion, or using new political processes; he would prefer to wait until the nation is unified, better administered, and more literate. Hence his and the Kuomintang's insistence on indirect elections, remoteness of policy-making authorities from the electorate, and self-sufficient government. China did have, it is argued, an excellent democratic constitution in 1912, many more in the warlord years. All had admirable balances of power, guarantees to the individual, libertarian and progressive provisions. Like Chinese social legislation, they lifted China to the level of the rest of the modern world--_de jure_, and that only! These elevated documents remained elevated; life went on beneath them, and the tragic gap between law and life was so enormous that no one thought of bridging it. The nation would have been humiliated by legislation which limited the working day to fourteen hours, prohibited the mutilation or slavery of children, or required that torture be administered in the presence of a physician. Hence it had eight, ten, or twelve-hour laws, good child legislation, and absolute prohibition of torture for any purpose; these were unenforceable.