Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/348

LAST DAYS It was probably about this same time or a little earlier that Tsêng sent a secret memorial urging the modernisation of the government by the adoption of the following programme:

1. The removal of the capital from Peking to some central point.

2. Abolishment of the corrupt practices of officialdom and the establishment of right methods of government.

3. Reform of the military in the creation of a modern army and navy, both to be placed under the central government.

4. Reorganisation of the treasury, which should be controlled entirely by the central government.

5. Reform in the method of recruiting the civil service, the dismissal of useless officials and the specific training of those who were capable.

The matters discussed in this memorial, of which the above is a simple outline, are the fundamental weaknesses of the Chinese system as it then existed, and, despite the Revolution, still exists today. It is very doubtful whether even the prestige of a man of Tsêng's caliber would have sufficed to transform the China of that day, with its great conservatism, into a progressive state. The task was certainly beyond the strength of Li Hung-chang, who, however, was more of a politician than Tsêng and apparently acted less on principle than expediency. Yet it is greatly to the credit of Tsêng that he so accurately pointed out the evils and indicated the remedies which, if his successors could only have adopted them, would have prevented the sad collapse of her central government.

That he is to be classed as a progressive and not a reactionary is to be seen in the further fact that Tsêng and the higher officials of state for a generation had broken through the red tape of Chinese practice and attained