The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1906-04-25

superintendent VI euuN"
gos ton for Chih-li. Yuan has
deprived his colleague, Chang Chlh
Tung, of the pleasure-dear to a Chi
nese generals heart--of disbursing 49,
100000 taels on army maneuvres in the
south, and will himself see that the
money goes to buy cruisers to patrol
the Yang-tse against-what? Boxers?
Yuan is quite the man of the hour. II
he orders a company of his foreign
drilled riflemen to change station for
the merest sanitary reasons. it is tele-
graphed around the world. Yuan's war
pony stands saddled day and night, and
Yuan's retinue waits by hours outside
the Empress Dowager's gate. But who
is Yuan Shh-kai?
Yuan Shih-kai, the viceroy Of Chih-
II, the capital province of China, is the
most remarkable character in China
to-day, not even excepting the Empress
Dowager herself; not only is he the
strongest man in China, the craftlest,
the subtlest and ablest courtier, but he
is a barometer of political events: his
attitude forecasts the trend of national
affairs. Vlceroy Yuan can, If he de-
cldes that it comports with his for
tunes, change his attitude with the ce-
lerity of weather vane but despite
this, and albeit he has removed his IA
vorlte foreign educator because of anti
foreign prejudice and anti-American
pressure he must not be supposed to
be the mere puppet of external infu-
ences. He is an active, thinking force
in the empires affairs, but over and
above all he is the supreme great OPP
portunist, who neglects to take advan-
tage of no tide or current which will
carry him little closer to the steps Of
the great dragon throne from which
his countrymen were rudey thrust
three centuries ago by a foreign inva-
| der.
China is land of contradictions,
! and Yuan is one of the living contradic-
tions. Like Ii Hung Chang. he has
risen to greatness under rulers who
thrive by grinding down the people of
his race. for Yuan, who is the right
hand of the Manchu dynasty is him
self Chinese. A soldier in country
where prowess at arms is despised as
a characteristic of rowdyism he ahas
distinguished himself as the first SOL
der of the empire, the best horseman
and swordsman thereof and yet is ST.
multaneously the adviser of royalty on
profoundest problems of state. In time
of peace he is the staff OH which de-
crepit Government leans in time of
war he is the sword arm OF the Govern
ment.
Yet the versatile and useful viceroy
of the capital province has not always
been the unquestionlng tool of his Man
ehu masters. He has lagrantly SET
aside the imperial will in one or two in
stances, and daringly disobeyed com
mands telegraphed him from the
throne, but he has come through 1t al
without shedding one bright peacock's
feather or losing a jade button. Per
haps the strength of this remarkable
man with the Pekin Government was
best shown when lie precipitated the
coup d'etat which placed the Emperor
Kuang Hsu, the Son of Heaven. in the
position of captive, and gave the
Government over to the reactionaries
who constitute the Empress Dowager' 5
own personal cabal Commissioned by
the Emperor officially to assassnate
the Governor of Chih-li Province, who
actively opposed his Majesty's reform
schemes, Yuan, instead, bade the Gov
ernor to flee to the Empress DowaGer
and tell her all that transpired. The
result was that the Emperor was
clapped into a palace prison. and since
that day the Empress Dowager has
handled both the reins and the whip
OF Government; but the world does not
know what part Yuan Shih-lai-to
whom so many foreigners owed their
lives in 1900. the man who has actual
ly introduced many practical reforms
into China-played in bringing about
the Emperor's downfall.
This illustrates where Yuan Shihkai
stood at the time of the great Chinese
coup d'etat of 1898; but when the
Boxer trouble arose in 1900 and threat
ened to sweep the country Of foreign
ers, Yuan had executed another one of
those graceful political demiyolts of
his which aligned him with mightier
J power than that of the dragon throne
namely. the allied powers of the world.
For reasons not unconnected with
Germany and her maileG-dst policy in
Shang-tung Province. Yuan Shih-kai
was made Governor OF that province
just previous to the Boxer uprising,
and the rich hinterland that the Kaiser
chose to regard as his Chinese land Of
promise was carefully and surrepti-
tiously seeded down to dragons teeth
by the willy Governor. Suddenly the
plot thickened, and athwart the dark
ening political sky loomed great war
spectres of Great Britain, America,
France, Russia Austria, Italy and
Japan, as well as Germany and there
was at least one Chinese official who
knew that China could not cope. in
her then state of unpreparedness, with
such mighty forces. Tweaking the tail
plumage Of the German ca gle would be
as nothing by comparison, and Yuan
began TO east about him TO see what
might be saved from the general
wreck.
For few MONTHS" he may have
communed with himself, my country
men will doubtless make II very dis
tressing for the foreigners in China
after that the foreigners will land IN
legions and will scatter the imperial