Should anything befall
the President, every business activity will at once be suspended,
shops will be closed, disquietude will prevail, people will become
panic-stricken, the troops uncontrollable, and foreign warship
will enter our harbours. European and American newspapers will be
full of special dispatches about the complicated events in China,
and martial law will be declared in every part of the country. All
this will be due to the uncertainty regarding the succession to
the presidency.
It will be seen from the first section of this long and
extraordinary pamphlet how the author develops his argument. One
of his major premises is the inherent unruliness of Republican
soldiery,--the armies of republics not to be compared with the
armed forces of monarchies,--and consequently constituting a
perpetual menace to good government. Passing on from this, he lays
down the proposition that China cannot hope to become rich so long
as the fear of civil war is ever-present; and that without a
proper universal education a republic is an impossibility. The
exercise of monarchical power in such circumstances can only be
called an inevitable development,--the one goal to be aimed at
being the substitution of Constitutional Government for the
dictatorial rule. The author deals at great length with the
background to this idea, playing on popular fears to reinforce his
casuistry.
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