Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/76

 there has been since 1911 has been divided among these men.

Nevertheless, the idea of constitutionalism—and the necessity of civil rule being made supreme—has never perished. That idea is stronger to-day than it has ever been before—it is the goal all educated Chinese in their heart of hearts are determined to attain. And because civil rule as opposed to militarism is the proclaimed object of the South-Western group of revolting provinces with their capital at Canton, let us see precisely how the matter stands.

The struggle between North and South in China is very old. In one form or another it has gone on for eight hundred years—in fact ever since the Kitan and Chin Tartars burst through the Great Wall in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and commenced the Tartar military supremacy in North China which has so profoundly modified the old Chinese ritual of government. For although the Ming dynasty (Chinese) broke the Mongol supremacy, and moved the capital from Nanking to Peking five hundred years ago, the Mings were soon enough ousted by the Manchus (Tartars again), who stereotyped nearly three centuries ago the conception of a military domination directed from