The watchfulness of the special police surrounding the Parliament of 1916-1917 and the great number of these men also tells a story as eloquent as the location of the building.  It is not so much that any contemplated violence sets these guardians here as the necessity to advertise that there has been unconstitutional violence in the past which, if possible, will be rigidly defeated in the future.  Probably no National Assembly in the world has been held up to greater contempt than the Parliament of Peking and probably no body deserves it less.  An afternoon spent in the House of Representatives would certainly surprise most open-minded men who have been content to believe that the Chinese experiment was what some critics have alleged it to be.  The Chinese as a people, being used to guild-house proceedings, debates, in which the welfare of the majority is decided after an examination of the principles at stake, are a very old and well-established custom; and though at present there are awkwardnesses and gaucheries to be noted, when practice has become better fixed, the common sense of the race will abundantly disclose itself and make a lasting mark on contemporary history.  There can be no doubt about this at all.

Take your seat in the gallery and see for yourself.  The first question which rises to the lips is—­where are the young men, those crude and callow youths masquerading as legislators which the vernacular press has so excessively lampooned?  The majority of the members, so far from being young, are men of thirty or forty, or even fifty, with intelligent and tired faces that have lost the Spring of youth.  Here and there you will even see venerable greybeards suffering from rheumy coughs who ought to be at home; and though occasionally there is a lithe youngster in European clothes with the veneer he acquired abroad not yet completely rubbed off, the total impression is that of oldish men who have reached years of maturity and who are as representative of the country and as good as the country is in a position to-day to provide.  No one who knows the real China can deny that.

The Continental arrangement of the Members’ desks and the raised tribune of the Speaker, with its rows of clerks and recorders, make an impression of orderliness, tinged nevertheless with a faint revolutionary flavour.  Perhaps it is the straight black Chinese hair and the rich silk clothing, set on a very plain and unadorned background, which recall the pictures of the French Revolution.  It is somehow natural in such circumstances that there should occasionally be dramatic outbursts with the blood of offenders bitterly demanded as though we were not living in the Twentieth Century when blood alone is admittedly no satisfaction.  The presence of armed House police at every door, and in the front rows of the strangers’ gallery as well, contributes to this impression which has certain qualities of the theatre about it and is oddly stimulating.  China at work legislating has already created her first traditions:  she is proceeding deliberately armed—­with the lessons of the immediate past fully noted.