w at each turning-point the men who should have taught him how to
be true and loyal to the Western things the country had nominally
adhered to from the proclamation of the Republic, showed him how to be
disloyal and untrue. The tragedy is one which is bound to be deeply
studied throughout the whole world when the facts are properly known and
there is time to think about them, and if there is anything to-day left
to poetic justice the West will know to whom to apportion the blame.

Yuan Shih-kai, the man, when he came out of retirement in 1911, was in
many ways a wonderful Chinese: he was a fount of energy and of a
physical sturdiness rare in a country whose governing classes have
hitherto been recruited from attenuated men, pale from study and the
lotus life. He had a certain task to which to put his hand, a huge task,
indeed, since the reformation of four hundred millions was involved, yet
one which was not beyond him if wisely advised. He was an ignorant man
in certain matters, but he had had much political experience and
apparently possessed a marvellous aptitude for learning. The people
needed a leader to guide them through the great gateway of the West, to
help them to acquire those jewels of wisdom and experience which are a
common heritage. An almost Elizabethan eagerness filled them, as if a
New World they had never dreamed of had been suddenly discovered for
them and lay open to their endeavours. China, hitherto derided as a
decaying land, had been born anew; and in single massive gesture had
proclaimed that she, too, would belong to the elect and be governed
accordingly.

What was the foreign response--the official response? In every
transaction into which it was possible to import them, reaction and
obscurantism were not only commonly employed but heartily recommended.
Not one trace of genuine statesmanship, not one flash of altruism, was
ever seen save the American flash in the pan of 1913, when President
Wilson refused to allow American participation in the great
Reorganization Loan because he held that the terms on which it was to be
granted infringed upon China's sovereign rights. Otherwise there was
nothing but a tacit endorsement of the very policy which has been
tearing the entrails out of Europe--namely militarism. That was the fine
fruit which was offered to a hopeful nation--something that would wither
on the branch or poison the people as they plucked it. They were taught
to believe that political