Great Viceroy of Manchuria.
By Christian Advocate
Now that the Japanese and Russian soldiers are gone, an imperial edict is promulgated giving the three provinces of which Manchuria is composed a new form of government. It is not our fault if any of our readers do not know that the government of China is largely that of Manchus instead of genuine Chinese, and that many of the internal troubles of China arise from this fact. At the head of this government for Manchuria is Yuan Shih-kai. It is he who is reorganizing the native military forces of North China. His present post is viceroy of Chihli. This is taken to be a sign that the empress dowager and her advisers intend to be ready should encroachments from the north or from the south be attempted after 1915. At that time the Anglo-Japanese alliance is expected to expire.11Yuan Shih-kai is not a Manchu, but a native Chinese. He has displayed amazing ability and self-control. When Japan and China went to war over the ascendency in the Korean Peninsula, this man was the Chinese representative at the Korean capital. After the struggle was over he went back to China, determined to promote the adoption of Japanese war methods. His next post was governor in Shantung, before he had his present viceroyalty. He was a member of the Reform Party in Peking before the Boxer uprising. Ostensibly he went over to the Reactionaries and kept the peace with the empress dowager. When the Peking legations were besieged he remained quietly in Shantung. He kept himself out of the troubles when Russia was annexing Manchuria, and afterward when Japan was turning her out. He is in the prime of life and controls seventy thousand men armed and drilled in modern fashion, and is continually increasing the number. The authority for these facts says that in all the years of the empire there has usually been one leading man of his type in China, but never a man “who has controlled such a force as seven divisions of good troops without curious results.” It is said that this man deserves to be better spoken of to-day than any other living Chinaman. Everybody believes that he loves his country, and eight or nine years hence he will see to it that the Chinese army will have to be reckoned with. He proposes by that time to have a trustworthy standing army of half a million, besides twice that number of reserves, trained soldiers. He is trying to introduce economy and honesty into the government finances. One of his coadjutors has been made president of the Board of Revenue and recently Imperial High Commissioner of Customs. Another of his proteges is reorganizing the navy, which was ruined by the Japanese in 1894 and 1895. He is Captain Tyler, an Englishman of the Royal Navy. He fills now a place in China which those who know declare to be comparable to that which Marquis Ito occupied in the Japan of twenty years ago.—Christian Advocate.