The Chinese generals are a curious survival of a prehistoric age. They are rather army contractors than generals, and they consider their position specially provided for their personal profit. The general draws from the Government a lump sum for the maintenance of an army, and makes his profit by falsifying the muster roll and by defrauding his men, not half the soldiers existing on paper exist in reality, and when an army inspector comes round, coolies are hired to pose as soldiers for the occasion, and the inspecting officer is "squared," in the traditional manner of China.

The soldier's occupation, which is the most honored profession of Japan, is despised by the Chinese, in accordance with the views of their ancient philosophers. They share Count Leo Tolstoi's opinion that "the first duty of rational beings is to abolish war altogether," and act in accordance with that view of war. Therefore, it is but natural that China has offered only a passive resistance to her enemies during the last few thousand years.

Patriotism is unknown in China, both in its larger and its smaller aspect. The provinces and the provincial officials do not possess the sense of national solidarity, and the individuual Chinaman does not possess the feeling that it is his duty to defend his country. Confucianism has put the importance of the family and the duties of the individual towards his family so much into the foreground that there seems to be no room left for patriotism -the duty towards one's country. Nepotism is part and a natural consequence of the family system, which is the palladium of China, and important official positions are frequently given by the men in power, not to the deserving, but to members of their family.

Family being the centre of the political fabric, China is organized on prin

ciples of the utmost decentralization. The interests of the provinces are placed above the interests of the nation, and the interest of the family is placed above the interest of the provinces. For these reasons the local authorities have become almost completely independent of the central power; the power of the State is extremely shadowy, and the importance attached to the family has created an "individualism" which is absolutely incompatible with the existence of the State and destructive of it.

In China the policy of laissez faire and non-interference has been carried to the furthest extreme. The officials shirk all the work that can be shirked, and leave the regulation of all public matters and the abolishment of all abuses to private enterprise, which has consequently created States within the State. Owing to the importance of the family, the Chinese possess no political instinct, but a strongly developed social instinct. Therefore the people exercise an enormous and often beneficial subterranean influence through their secret societies and their guilds. But at the same time they have made all political government extremely difficult, owing to the activity of these secret social organizations, as Great Britain has experienced in Hong Kong.

Through the absence of political instinct and of patriotic feeling, self-interest has become the strongest motif of the individual-soldiers serve only for their pay or from compulsion, personal patriotism is unknown, extortion and bribery are rampant throughout the official classes, and the individual Chinese will never hesitate to sell his country to the enemy. The absence of public honesty is all the more astonishing if we compare it with the private honesty of the Chinese. In no country in the world is the word of a merchant more sacred than in China.

The word of the average Chinese business man is as good as the bond of the average European. That noble feeling which we call patriotism, and which is possessed by the Japanese in the most exalted degree, is not known and hardly understood in China, but its place is taken by the passionate attachment of the individual Chinaman to his family. Therefore, the Chinese is always ready to lay down his life for the good of his family as unhesitatingly as the Japanese will sacrifice himself for his country.

The facts and evidence given in the foregoing should make it abundantly clear that the difference between China and Japan, and the difference between China and any European power, in history, traditions, character, mind, and organization, is so great that a comparison between China and Japan or between China and any European power is altogether out of the question. As a matter of fact, the fundamental differences between China and Japan are greater than those between China and England. We therefore cannot make logical deductions as to the future development of China, as such deductions would necessarily be based on precedents furnished either by Japan or by a white power. Therefore it would appear that those who rashly concluded that China would follow in the footsteps of Japan were totally oblivious of, or unacquainted with, the peculiarities of China.

If we bear in mind these peculiarities which have characterized China for thousands of years, and remember how deeply the country is steeped in its ancient traditions by having lived a life apart through more than a hundred generations, we can understand why perhaps the most talented and the most Westernized Chinese statesman, Marquis Tseng, who, to the misfortune of China, died too young, wrote the following in 1887:

If we bear in mind all the evidence that has been put forward, it does not seem likely that China will become aggressive and a danger to Europe, nor does it seem probable that she will introduce thorough reforms for a long time to come. It appears that even the most enlightened Chinese do not quite grasp how deeply rooted China's conservatism is, and how radical must be the change that will deflect China from the course which she has pursued for thousands of years without turning. This may be seen from the celebrated Reform Edict of the Emperor which was published in 1901, in which the surface causes of China's weakness were explained. We read in this document:

Chinese and foreign methods are to be blended together in one whole, for China's weakness lies in her adherence to tradition and the too great inflexibility of her modes of government. Worthless officials are numerous and good men few; in our modes of government we employ mediocrities who take advantage of their position and freedom from scrutiny. The officials in the yamens rely on their positions to make

money, and in our official procedure attention is paid to the composition of despatches, and none at all to the real needs of the times. What

has ruined our government is the one word "self-interest" and the Empire the one word "precedent." . . The prejudiced literati talk of orthodoxy in scholarship without understanding in the least degree of what they speak. Through our obstinate belief that literary excellence is the criterion of merit and that government can only be carried on by close adherence to precedent, we have gradually fallen into the present state of formless indifference as to whether a particular reform is to be initiated or abuse abolished.

The publication of this edict convinced many superficial observers that China had at last entered upon the path of reform. However, those who have a more intimate knowledge of the country doubted, and justly, whether it would be possible to "blend Chinese and foreign methods together in one whole." That seems to be a task which is beyond the power of any man, even of a Marquis Ito.

Japan could easily reform herself, for she was constitutionally progressive, patriotic, centralized, and used to absolutism, so that a single will could move the whole nation towards reform. China is not a nation, but merely a geographical and an ethnographical expression, and as no Chinese nation exists, it is difficult to see whence a national awakening or a national movement can come. China seems to be fettered to the dim and distant past with almost unbreakable chains which the genius of its sages has devised. Japan was free from such fetters, and her mind was like a blank page.

During the last few years we have heard a great deal of Chinese reforms, and especially of educational reforms. A considerable number of reform edicts have been published, facilities have

been created in China for the study of Western science, and a number of Chinese students have been sent abroad for study. But at the same time the ardent reformers have been cruelly persecuted in China, and have been treated as revolutionaries; in 1902 the European professors were dismissed from the recently created Imperial University, and the reform era seems to have come to an end and to have given place to an era of reaction. Only a few months ago the well-informed Tientsin correspondent of the Times reported:

The immediate prospect of reformed education in Peking and in the provinces is not cheerful. Universities, colleges, and schools abound, it is true, but, being under official management, they resemble the Chinese army in that their existence is largely a matter of imagination. Those sanguine students who, relying on the progressive edicts of the year of penitence, 1901, have devoted themselves to "Western learning" in the hope of finding therein advancement, are now realizing the error of their ways.

At most of the recent provincial examinations it has been made clear that he who adheres to the old order of things, he who best commits to memory the sacred books and classics, will continue to find favor and promotions.

Chinese students are also no longer encouraged to go abroad in order to learn what other nations are doing. The Chinese authorities probably remember the saying of Li-fun:

The wise man can learn everything under the sun without leaving his home. That of which he has no experience he can investigate as if he had been personally present.

Perhaps nothing better illustrates the mental attitude of the Chinese literati towards Western culture than the following text of an examination paper, in which the contempt of China for the

West is clad in the most delicate irony:

When the teachings of the philosopher Meh that all should love one another won the adherence of the people, then soldiers refused to go to war.

The State churches of Western Europe are somewhat similar in their teaching, but when their armies and navies receive the order to go to war they all compete to be the first in the fight resulting in the slaughter of the enemy.

What is the reason of this?

The contents of the essays written in answer to this question by the competing students may easily be imagined.

China's weakness has always proved her strength. The teeming millions of her population have been like shifting. quicksands to the heavy foot of the conqueror. China has proved unconquerable because she is ungovernable, having never been accustomed to any form of government properly so called. The very lack of a native governmental organization has deprived conquering nations of a means of gaining a hold on the nation, and of the possibility of imposing their will on the people. Besides the deeply rooted hatred of foreigners, the absence of governmental restrictions, and the self-centred existence of the family, have made a hostile kingdom of every household to the stranger who tries to lead or to coerce China upon a new path. A conqueror may, and possibly will, win over the mandarins; but he will find it impossibe to conquer the people. For this reason Japan would not be able to obtain a hold on China even if she had a mind to do so, for Japan might possess, but she could not rule, the country. Sir Robert Hart wisely wrote:

Whatever portion of China is ceded will have to be ruled by force, and the larger the territory so ceded, the

more soldiers will its management require and the more certain will be unrest and insurrection.

The Japanese are fully aware of these peculiarities of China, and one of the most prominent Japanese statesman recently declared:

We would not have China or a part of China for a gift, for it would only be a source of trouble and expense to us. It would cost us a lot of money for administration, and bring in nothing in return. We can only profit from China by trading, but trade would not increase by our occupation.

Bismarck said, shortly before his death, to Poschinger: "It has been asserted that the Chinese might prove a danger to Europe; but such a development seems unlikely in view of the power of inertia which this people has shown through centuries," and Lord Curzon, who is perhaps the best judge of Asiatic politics living, has, on similar grounds, given a complete refutation to the danger of the yellow peril in his book Problems of the Far East. It seems that the vast majority of European statesmen who are acquainted with China agree on this point.

We may expect that Japan will in course of time be forced to look for colonies, for only one-eighth of her narrow territory is cultivable. Japanese colonization will probably be chiefly directed towards Corea, and her colonizing activity should prove no political danger, but an economic advantage to Europe. China will probably continue for a long time to live a life apart, and neither reform herself nor allow outsiders to reform her. Therefore, it appears that neither in China nor in Japan are there any elements from which a peril to Europe is likely to arise.

People who speak of the yellow peril think of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane,

and of the Mongolian hordes which overran Europe. But these Mongolian hordes did not come from China. They came from those territories north of China, which now are Russian. The Chinese and Japanese themselves have been exposed to that yellow peril. The Mongolians conquered China easily; but of the enormous host which landed in Japan only three returned alive. From the most remote times until the present day China was threatened from the North, and Confucius repeatedly pointed out the dangers arising from the barbarians of the North as a protection against whom the Great Wall of China was erected 2,000 years ago.

When some years ago the German Emperor painted his celebrated picture The Yellow Peril, he either believed that that peril really existed, and in that case his belief was not founded on sufficient evidence, or he was unwittingly made the instrument of Russia, whose policy he was led to support in order to protect Europe against the yellow peril. At present Russian diplomacy is again using the argument of the yellow peril for all it is worth, in order to find allies which will extricate her from the unpleasant position into which she has brought herself. Already the German and French journals which stand under the influence of the Russian foreign office are preaching a crusade of united Europe against Japan, because of the yellow peril which threatens Europe, and even M. Hanotaux and M. Lockroy have lately been prevailed upon publicly to Nineteenth Century and After

endorse this legend in the interest of "La Nation amie et alliée."

However, notwithstanding these interesting attempts to falsify history and to pervert public opinion, the two great Anglo-Saxon nations who, owing to the grouping of the Powers, will be the arbiters in the Russo-Japanese conflict, and they should never forget it, will not be convinced that China and Japan are a peril to Europe. In due time there may be a Congress of London or of San Francisco, but there must not be a Congress of Berlin.

If there is a yellow peril for Europe, it must be sought for not in China or Japan, but in another country. Russia's wanton aggression in every direction from sheer lust of conquest, her harsh and truly Mongolian rule, and her destruction of all original culture in the lands which she has conquered, by her celebrated "policy of the steam-roller," is the greatest peril that threatens Europe and its civilization. "Egratignez le Russe et vous trouvez le Tartare" is to-day as true as it was when Napoleon the First coined the phrase. Indeed, Russia is în race, customs, art, thought, and general culture more yellow than white, more Asiatic than European. Count Okuma, the Japanese statesman, therefore expressed what most European diplomats think, though they may hesitate to put their conviction into words, when he recently declared: "The real cause of the yellow peril does not lie with Japan or with China, but with the gigantic Power of the North."

0. Eltzbacher.