When the time comes to draft a permanent Constitution, I have no doubt that it will have to be federal, allowing a very large measure of autonomy to the provinces, and reserving for the Central Government few things except customs, army and navy, foreign relations and railways.  Provincial feeling is strong, and it is now, I think, generally recognized that a mistake was made in 1912 in not allowing it more scope.

While a Constitution is being drafted, and even after it has been agreed upon, it will not be possible to rely upon the inherent prestige of Constitutionalism, or to leave public opinion without guidance.  It will be necessary for the genuinely progressive people throughout the country to unite in a strongly disciplined society, arriving at collective decisions and enforcing support of those decisions upon all its members.  This society will have to win the confidence of public opinion by a very rigid avoidance of corruption and political profiteering; the slightest failure of a member in this respect must be visited by expulsion.  The society must make itself obviously the champion of the national interests as against all self-seekers, speculators and toadies to foreign Powers.  It will thus become able authoritatively to commend or condemn politicians and to wield great influence over opinion, even in the army.  There exists in Young China enough energy, patriotism and honesty to create such a society and to make it strong through the respect which it will command.  But unless enlightened patriotism is organized in some such way, its power will not be equal to the political problems with which China is faced.

Sooner or later, the encroachments of foreign Powers upon the sovereign rights of China must be swept away.  The Chinese must recover the Treaty Ports, control of the tariff, and so on; they must also free themselves from extra-territoriality.  But all this can probably be done, as it was in Japan, without offending foreign Powers (except perhaps the Japanese).  It would be a mistake to complicate the early stages of Chinese recovery by measures which would antagonize foreign Powers in general.  Russia was in a stronger position for defence than China, yet Russia has suffered terribly from the universal hostility provoked by the Bolsheviks.  Given good government and a development of China’s resources, it will be possible to obtain most of the needed concessions by purely diplomatic means; the rest can wait for a suitable opportunity.

2. Industrial development.—­On this subject I have already written in Chap.  XIV.; it is certain general aspects of the subject that I wish to consider now.  For reasons already given, I hold that all railways ought to be in the hands of the State, and that all successful mines ought to be purchased by the State at a fair valuation, even if they are not State-owned from the first.  Contracts with foreigners for loans ought to be carefully drawn so as to leave the control to China.  There would not be much difficulty about this if China had a stable and orderly government; in that case, many foreign capitalists would be willing to lend on good security, without exacting any part in the management.  Every possible diplomatic method should be employed to break down such a monopoly as the consortium seeks to acquire in the matter of loans.