Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/122

 explanation is to be sought in the very mild impulses of the race, which are expressed in the quietist doctrines animating Chinese society, is the writer's profound conviction. And so does it happen that the Chinese people have come to think that they have been caught in the Caudine Forks, and that it is the Japanese who are striving mightily to play the part of the Samnites and make them pass under the yoke.

What are the vital difficulties at the present moment in the way of civil authority being so constituted as to be effective?

First, and greatest of all, there is the question of Parliament and the rôle it should play in the life of the State. Round this question a fierce struggle has raged from the very inception of the Republic, because the abdication of the Manchus was only secured by a compromise so framed that Conservatives and Radicals could interpret that dramatic act much as they pleased. According to Article 53 of the Nanking provisional Constitution, promulgated in January, 1912, and accepted as the law of the land, within ten months of that date a National Assembly was to be convened, to frame the permanent Constitution and to be the articulate