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
3. If the Government should fail to make provisions for the
development of the constitutional government, no permanent benefit
will result from the change of a republic into a monarchy. For if
China wishes to occupy a suitable place among the world powers,
the patriotism of her people must be made to grow so that the
government will be more than strong enough to cope with outside
aggression. The patriotism of the people will not grow if they are
not allowed to participate in political affairs, and without the
hearty assistance of the people no government can become strong.
For the reason why the people will assist the government is
because they feel they are a part of the government. Therefore the
government should make the people realize that the government is
the organ which aims at bringing blessing to the people, and make
the people understand that they have the right to superintend the
government before the government can achieve great things.
Every one of the points mentioned above are indispensable for the
change of the Republic into a monarchy. Whether the necessary
conditions are present must be left to those who know China well
and are responsible for her future progress. If these conditions
are all present then I have no doubt that the change of the form
of the government will be for the benefit of China.
The first illuminating point, as we have already said, to leap up
and lock attention to the exclusion of everything else in this
memorandum, is that the chief difficulty which perplexes Dr.
Goodnow is not the consolidation of a new government which had
been recognized by all the Treaty Powers only two years previously
but the question of succession to the supreme office in the land,
a point which had already been fully provided for in the one
chapter of the Permanent Constitution which had been legally
passed prior to the Coup d'etat of the 4th November, 1913. But
Yuan Shih-kai's first care after that coup d'etat had been to
promulgate with the assistance of Dr. Goodnow and others, a bogus
Law, resting on no other sanction than his personal volition, with
an elaborate flummery about three candidates whose names were to
be deposited in the gold box in the Stone House in the gardens of
the Palace. Therefore since the provisional nature of this
prestidigitation had always been clear, the learned doctor's only
solution is to recommend the overthrow of the government; the
restoration of the Empire under the name of Constitutional
Monarchy; and, by means of a fresh plot to do in China what all
Europe has long been on the point of abandoning, namely, to
substitute Family rule for National rule.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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