, etc. Such strict stipulations which are not even known in
such an advanced country in matters constitutional as England were
extorted from the imperial family by the advisory council.
Therefore it is most unlikely that the makers of the future
constitution will take any article from the nineteen capitulations
of "confidence." They will use the Constitutions of Japan and
Prussia as joint model and will always have in their mind the
actual conditions of this country and the standard of the people.
In short, they will copy some of the articles in the Japanese
constitution, and adopt the Prussian method of procedure for the
making of the constitution.
Mr. Ko: What do you mean by honesty?
Mr. Hu: It is a bad policy to deceive the people. Individually the
people are simple, but they cannot be deceived collectively. The
Manchu Government committed an irretrievable mistake by promising
the people a constitutional government but never carrying out
their promise. This attitude on the part of the then reigning
house brought about the first revolution. As the standard of our
people at the present time is not very high, they will be
satisfied with less power if it is properly given to them. Should
any one attempt to deceive them his cause will finally be lost. I
do not know how much power the people and the parliament will get
in the constitutional monarchy, but I would like to point out here
that it is better to give them less power than to deceive them.
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