New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-12-19

ing the thought OF the day in terms which the
public instinctvely approves OF. This coun-
try being in an international sense primarily
trade question and a police question, every
thing that takes place is measured by the sort
OF guarantee the change gives OF permanent
peace. II is just because new dynasty can
no more guarantee that than did the old dy-
nasty that foreign opinion is so restrained.
That is why the national vote. to be held under
strict official tutelage throughout China, is in
reality trivial and meaningless thing, and is
even spoken of as an open and shameless farce
which ought to be scathingy denounced.
Two factors have to-day more Importance
than all the voting in the world. The first
70 is Japan. Though no European nation ac-
cepts she Chinese view that Japan desires to
break up China and absorb her as she has
absorbed Corea, there is undoubtedly fast
growing conviction that Japanese pressure will
inevitably bring about the greatest changes
throughout the country in an economic as
well as military sense and gradually destroy
tine old treaty-port conditions which have ex
listed for seventy years and more.
Everything that occurs in Picking is in
viction, and it is precisely because it exists
that radical political changes are becoming
more and more dsliked. Large constitutional
notifications all the world over inevitably re-
act in the same way they dispace the whole
nexus OF foreign relationship and tend to pull
forward rising factors and to depress declin-
ing factors
TIL. debt which formidable group of pow
ers is ping up to Japan's credit must sooner
or later be qudatcd in the Far East by a
process of adjustment" which China will
prove powerless to arrest unless the nation
is united to a man. China is not united
China though quiet, is morally more disunited
beneath the surface than she has ever been
before No better commentary on the sub
stitutior of dynastic for popular control could
be afforded than the way in which subscrip-
tons to the giant Patriotic Fund-the fund
designed to fight Japan economically-ha
ceased as if by magic. subscribers even de-
manding their money back.
HISTORICAL SENSE LACKING.
The second factor is the attitude of the
United States.
1t is perhaps too much to expect that
Asiatics, with their poorly-developed historical
sense should be able to grasp the something
more than sentimental interest Americans nee
essarily have in all republics; close acquaint
ance with the whole range Of British and
American history during the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries is required for that.
curious senstiveness, allied to a devotion to
the principles enunciated by the founders of
the American commonwealth, on the one
hand makes it incumbent on the American
people to welcome with open arms any new
recruit to the ranks Of republicanism, and, on
the other, forces them to be scornful Of those
who embrace again mpnarchical doctrines.
Always the first to extend diplomatic recog-
milton to nations who drive dynastes into
exile, Americans find in such revolutions a
perpetual inspiration for themselves. Briefly,
they believe that no matter how badly repub
licanism may work at its inception, in the long