THE FIGHT FOR THE REPUBLIC IN CHINA

BY B. L. PUTNAM WEALE





PREFACE


This volume tells everything that the student or the casual reader
needs to know about the Chinese Question. It is sufficiently
exhaustive to show very clearly the new forces at work, and to
bring some realisation of the great gulf which separates the
thinking classes of to-day from the men of a few years ago;
whilst, at the same time, it is sufficiently condensed not to
overwhelm the reader with too great a multitude of facts.

Particular attention may be devoted to an unique feature--namely,
the Chinese and Japanese documentation which affords a sharp
contrast between varying types of Eastern brains. Thus, in the
Memorandum of the Black Dragon Society (Chapter VII) we have a
very clear and illuminating revelation of the Japanese political
mind which has been trained to consider problems in the modern
Western way, but which remains saturated with theocratic ideals in
the sharpest conflict with the Twentieth Century. In the pamphlet
of Yang Tu (Chapter VIII) which launched the ill-fated Monarchy
Scheme and contributed so largely to the dramatic death of Yuan
Shih-kai, we have an essentially Chinese mentality of the