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first importance; though nine years elapsed before he accepted public responsibility. On his authority as parent, the Regent leaned to maintain herself; and she had consequently to buy him at any price. But he was a weak man, and with Kung in possession of the offices, Prince Ch'un was an inadequate factotum. Her majesty required a second string to her bow, and finding nothing to suit her purpose in the capital, she set her affections on a provincial statesman who was abler than Kung, and more versed in foreign affairs, which were the plague of the Peking Government. For prestige and legality she had the Emperor's father; for executive action, Li Hung-chang, who became the confidant of both. So the Empress-regent's position was assured during the minority of Kwang-su.

The crisis in her fate, as was anticipated, arrived on the present Emperor's coming of age, marriage, and assumption of the Government. Would the Regent frankly resign or still cling to power? and if so, by what means, and under what pretext? The Emperor attained his majority in a rather novel manner. It was not a sudden phenomenon, but a gradual process, resembling the dawn of a summer day in high latitudes rather than the abrupt rising of the equatorial sun. Clearly the Regent was extremely reluctant to lay down the sceptre, and when it was impossible further to retard the unwelcome ceremony, her devices to retain the reality, even when obliged to part with the form of power, were deep and tortuous. It would be impossible, and also unprofitable, to trace these; but the most remarkable of them all deserves particular notice, because of the light it throws on the recent intrigues in Peking, and on the contentions of the last ten years.

The Regent entered into a private

treaty with the Emperor, whereby, in making over to him full powers, she specifically reserved to herself certain articles, twenty-five in number; and she retained in her possession a most important seal, without which the Emperor's authority could never be complete. signed, sealed, and delivered, between Emperor and Regent that is at the bottom of the struggle, and the defeat of the weaker party, which has been announced within the last month. Let us trace shortly the progress of the strife, that we may the better appreciate the outcome.

It is this convention,

Notwithstanding this unique convention, the Emperor continued more Sinico under the influence of his tutor Wên-tung-ho, who made it his business to fill the pupil's mind with abhorrence of the illegal compact το which he had made himself a party, and of the illegality of the Empress's whole position. His majesty imbibed the inspiration, and then himself, measures which he did not himself understand, calculated to release him, one by one, from the capitulations. His ceremonial visits and obeisances to his adoptive mother were punctually performed, and there were frequent notices in the Peking Gazette and other Chinese papers, dwelling with suspicious iteration on the model filial conduct of the Emperor. But while observing the utmost punctilio in his intercourse, the Emperor, as prompted by his advisers, confined himself strictly to what etiquette demanded,-neither consulting the late Regent nor discussing any public matters with her. An Emperor's party was formed to counteract the ex-Regent, and they scored many successes, some of which emerged clearly into the light of day. Encouraged by these successes, the Emperor's advisers, soon after his full accession, sought and found an occasion for an open at

tack on the Dowager's party; and, in view of recent occurrences, it is interesting to remember that the casus belli in 1889 was then, as now, reform. The only difference is, the parties have changed places. Then it was railway extension-proposed by Li Hung-chang, approved by the Empress-dowager, and nominally sanctioned by the Emperor himself—that was selected by the Emperor's party as the battle-ground. The reactionaries triumphed, and the railway between Tientsin and Peking had to be for the time abandoned. A local critic commented on the incident in the following terms:

the twenty-five reservations, while the ex-Regent had the misery to see her influence melting away while she was powerless to arrest the process, or to do more than set spies on the proceedings of the plotters,-and wait.

The Japanese war widened the rift in the lute. The Empress-dowager was for peace at any price, as she always has been, while the Emperor's advisers, probably out of simple opposition, demanded war to the knife,and got it. Li Hung-chang was loyal to his Mistress, and, both from policy and conviction, did what in him lay to evade the war. He was superceded in his territorial and administrative functions, though, with that fatuity which we find it so difficult to understand, he was, nevertheless, left to carry on the war! During this time the Emperor's tutor, Wên-tung-ho, went secretly to Tientsin to spy upon and confer with Li Hung-chang on the situation, which he either failed to understand, or wilfully perverted the truth in the report which he submit. ted. The issue of the war, of course, stultified the Emperor's party, whose energies were then concentrated on the search for a scape-goat. Not a difficult task in itself, this was rendered easier

It would be premature to conclude from the struggle over the railway extension that the new Emperor will be wholly given over to a blind and bigoted conservatism. When the new combinations are once settled in their places, and the party which is to rule in the State has made good its position, the immediate cause of hostility to the Tungchow Railway may cease to operate, and the question which is now debated at fever-heat may, like those questions which agitate democratic countries on the eve of elections, fall into wholesome neglect, under cover of which the real statesmen may resume their beneficent projects without the fear of provoking by the secret communications which deadly opposition.

And this very railway is now in full running trim, having been opened to traffic this year.

We have written so far to little purpose, if any reader believes that it is questions of reform or any other question but the old one of "ins" and "outs" that divide the Chinese imperial family. Things are not what they seem, and any stone is good enough to throw at an enemy.

Their success in blocking the railway scheme encouraged the Emperor's party to persevere with their plan for extricating his Majesty from

Li's subordinate, the famous Shêng, carried on with his enemies.

Passing over, for want of space, the peace mission to Japan,1 the Palace feud came to a head on the return of the envoy with the treaty of Shimonoseki. This was a most critical juncture. Every preparation was made in Peking to impeach Li Hung-chang and have him executed. A cordon of 25,000 men was supposed to have been placed round the city, into which Li entered virtually a prisoner. The Emperor received him badly,-made him come forward, on his knees, that his

1 Described in "Maga," September 1895: "The Japanese Imbroglio."

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a scape-goat for himself.

Thus by sheer energy she gathered up the threads one by one, regained her position gradually, and took back the powers of which she had been deprived by the machinations of the Emperor's advisers.

plicitly accepted by the Emperor with--especially Wên-tung-ho-to seek each out reference to the Empress-dowager, and in direct violation of the twentyfive reservations. The lictors were told off, and the place and time of exetion fixed. One thing only was want ing, the assent of Prince Kung. The Prince, who had been summoned out of his retirement by the Empressdowager before Li Hung-chang was sent to Japan,-a bitter pill for her Majesty,-opposed the attempt on Li. He knew well it was not Li, but the Empress-dowager herself, who was aimed at in this violent action. So. while the other members of the Council proposed to have Li executed first, and report to the Emperor after, Kung's protest saved him.

While these things were going on, the Empress-dowager remained quiescent. Whether she was secretly, through her spies, informed of all that was passing or not, she had no official knowledge of it, and no ostensible ground of action. Possibly she saw no chance of saving Li, and would only have consummated her own defeat by an attempt to save him. But she took courage when the independent action of Prince Kung was reported to her, and at once resumed an active interest in the intrigues. First, she made strenuous efforts to get Kung (on some ceremonial visit to her) to say who they were who were alienating the Emperor's mind from her. his mother and protectrice. But the Prince was silent. Next, the first occasion when the Emperor was in her presence, making filial obeisance, she suddenly demanded who had advised him in these evil

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How the Empress used her victory would bear telling; but let it suffice to say that by a course of truculent procedure she so cowed, not only the Emperor, but his whole entourage, that every one of them was afraid of his life. They recalled the fate of the first Council of Regency, the fate they had themselves prepared for Li Hung-chang,-and none dared to be found on any side but that of the strong-minded woman.

One unpremeditated result of the fierce conflict in 1895 was the mission of Li Hung-chang to Moscow in 1896, whither he was sent by his imperial Mistress, partly to get him out of harm's way till matters were more settled in Peking. The outcome of that mission, indicated in "Maga" nine months ago, has been extensively developed since, in which gives a certain point to comments current when the dynastic conflict was in its incandescent stage. Among notes made in 1892, for instance, we find such remarks as these:

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press-Dowager, and such like] may have a great significance in the evolution of the empire. Patriotism being entirely subordinated to personal interest and indulgence, the way may be opened for some Ignatieff to effect a coup like that of 1858, which was believed to have been achieved by working on the cupidity of high officials.

The practical conclusion of the whole matter for us is that, be her motives, character, and sentiments what they may, the Usurper is de facto sovereign by virtue of her force of will and the absence of capable rivals. All hopes of a manly reign were years ago abandoned, when the promise of the young Emperor began to unfold. Effeminate, vicious, and without character, the sovereign was born to be a puppet in the hands of stronger men. He has, moreover, been in bad hands.

His tutor and chief adviser is a reactionary, ignorant of affairs to a surprising degree, not beyond hope of conversion and enlightenment perhaps; but when the welfare of the State has to wait for the education of an old man-Saul becoming Paul-the case is rather hopeless.

As to the reform schemes recently promulgated, the announcement was enough to make the judicious grieve. Blackwood's Magazine.

A few hours' conversation with a visionary, and then a root-and-branch reform that would make the heart of the stoutest Radical stand still! Does the monarch know his own country? Here in England, the cradle of reform, it would take fifty years and half-adozen royal Commissions to reform one Government office; and this amiable young man, without knowledge or experience, proposes to revolutionize at one stroke an empire ten times our size, and the most conservative of all States. It was about time the Dowager stepped in to recover her twenty-five points, and perhaps seventy-five more which were not reserved.

The quality of the Empress's rulefor we may now call her so without affix-can only be judged by what it was during the Regency, when she was at the head of every movement that partook of the character of reform.

Foreign diplomacy has failed, for want of a definite center of volition and sensation to act upon. It had no fulcrum for its lever. Hence only force has ever succeeded in China. With like a woman the Empress might it not be possible really to transact business?

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NAT AND NATTY.

Natty Byrne sat on his high stool near the one window of the cabin in the falling dusk. He was tired of waiting, very tired, but his grandfather's orders had been explicit: "Shtay here, Natty, 'till ye see me agin; there is bread in the cupboard, an' maybe a taste o' butther, and I'll bring somethin' swate for ye from Carmore."

I do not say that Natty had not thought of disobeying; as a matter of fact, the temptation had recurred at short intervals during the whole afternoon; once in the almost irresistible form that he ought to go and look at the pig, but he had got no further than the door. He had a great feeling of importance, too; he had never been left alone for so long before, and the burden of responsibility pleased him; he had also a vague idea that something was going to happen, because, two days before, his grandfather had written a letter. That letter had cost old Nat half a day's work, and he had used a whole penny packet of stationery over it.

As it grew darker Natty began to feel a little afraid; he would have left the high stool if the dignity derived from his exalted position had not balanced the fact that his bare feet did not touch the ground. He was very proud of the stool, no other boy he knew had one like it, and, although it was extremely inconvenient, he often insisted upon eating his meals at that distinguished altitude.

From time to time he glanced furtively round the cabin. Old Nat's bed, narrow and dark, set against the wall like a ship's berth, had a sinister look in that ambiguous twilight; even Natty's own little crib, which consisted of a deal platform raised a foot from

the floor, with a mattress on the top of it, looked unfamiliar. The peats on the open hearth burned dimly; the chairs seemed to have doubled in bulk since the sunshine faded; the rough wood table loomed large and grim. After every furtive survey the boy brought his eyes back to the gray square of the window with a little shivering gasp.

It occurred to him to light the lamp, but as that was an office he had never performed, it being beyond his years, he felt himself unequal to the task. Besides, that would mean trotting over the floor, and in the darkness his bare feet might touch something horrible.

But all at once he grew quite brave again, for he heard the sound of footsteps coming slowly up the mountain pathway. It was too dark to see who it was, but of course it must be old Nat, and Natty promptly began to wonder what the "something swate" might be that was at that moment, doubtless, getting warm and sticky in his grandfather's pocket. He climbed down from his stool and pattered softly over the hard earth floor to the door. The footsteps paused and there was a knock. Natty's heart went down into his plump toes; he was so terrified that he could not move to raise the latch. The knock was not repeated, but the door was softly opened and Natty saw a dim head thrust in.

"Is Nat Byrne at home?" asked a voice.

"Plase, sorr, no!" gasped Natty. "Whin'll he be back, an' who are you at all?"

"He'll be back, sorr, this minute, an' plase, I'm Natty."

The stranger came in and closed the door. He peered curiously round the room.

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