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6 egoism of an irresponsible and unchallenged absolutism, is even now in travail, with every prospect of giving birth to a deformed caricature of constitutional government. In Egypt the cry of nationality trembles in the air, while in Turkey the passage from autocracy to representative government has been effected with such bewildering rapidity, and with such an astonishing absence of friction, that it is difficult to grasp the fact that so unexampled and so unlooked-for a change has in very truth been brought about. From all quarters come indications that the Eastern question of the future is assuming a new phase, in which the rivalries and jealousies of European Powers are falling more and more into the background before the rapidly growing ambitions and aspirations of the Eastern races themselves.

It is in the Far East that this new movement has had its origin, and it is in the Far East that its progress may be most profitably studied, and it is to the countries of the Far East consequently—China, Korea, and Japan—that the pages that follow are almost exclusively restricted. The greater part of the