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 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 regime 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 naively 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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