The Fight for the Republic in ChinaPutnam Weale, B. L. (Bertram Lenox)
History
The Fight for the Republic in China
Putnam Weale, B. L. (Bertram Lenox)
China -- History -- Republic, 1912-1949; China -- Politics and government
On this note the pamphleteer abruptly ends. Having discussed _ad
nauseam_ the inadequacy of all existing arrangements, even those made by
Yuan Shih-kai himself, to secure a peaceful succession to the
presidency; and having again insisted upon the evil part soldiery cannot
fail to play, he introduces a new peril, the certainty that the foreign
Powers will set up a puppet Emperor unless China solves this problem
herself, the case of Korea being invoked as an example of the fate of
divided nations. Fear of Japan and the precedent of Korea, being
familiar phenomena, are given a capital position in all this debate,
being secondary only to the crucial business of ensuring the peaceful
succession to the supreme office. The transparent manner in which the
history of the first three years of the Republic is handled in order to
drive home these arguments will be very apparent. A fit crown is put on
the whole business by the final suggestion that the Constitutional
Government of China under the new empire must be a mixture of the
Prussian and Japanese systems, Yang Tu's last words being that it is
best to be honest with the people!
No more damning indictment of Yuan Shih-kai's régime could possibly have
been penned.
CHAPTER IX
THE MONARCHY PLOT
THE MEMORANDUM OF DR. GOODNOW
Although this extraordinary pamphlet was soon accepted by Chinese
society as a semi-official warning of what was coming, it alone was not
sufficient to launch a movement which to be successful required the
benign endorsement of foreign opinion. The Chinese pamphleteer had dealt
with the emotional side of the case: it was necessary to reinforce his
arguments with an appeal which would be understood by Western statesmen
as well as by Eastern politicians. Yuan Shih-kai, still pretending to
stand aside, had kept his attention concentrated on this very essential
matter; for, as we have repeatedly pointed out, he never failed to
understand the superlative value of foreign support in all his
enterprises,--that support being given an exaggerated value by the
public thanks to China's reliance on foreign money. Accordingly, as if
still unconvinced, he now very naïvely requested the opinion of his
chief legal adviser, Dr. Goodnow, an American who had been appointed to
his office through the instrumentality of the Board of the Carnegie
Institute as a most competent authority on Administrative Law.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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