As a next step in reform, the examination system was to be remodelled, but not in the one sense in which it would have appealed most to the Chinese people.  Examinations for Manchus have always been held separately, and the standard attained has always been very far below that reached by Chinese candidates, so that the scholarship of the Manchu became long ago a by-word and a joke.  Now, in 1904, it was settled that entry to an official career should be obtainable only through the modern educational colleges; but this again applied only to Chinese and not to Manchus.  The Manchus have always had wisdom enough to employ the best abilities they could discover by process of examination among the Chinese, many of whom have risen from the lowest estate to the highest positions in the empire, and have proved themselves valuable servants and staunch upholders of the dynasty.  Still, in addition to numerous other posts, it may be said that all the fat sinecures have always been the portion of Manchus.  For instance, the office of Hoppo, or superintendent of customs at Canton (abolished 1904), was a position which was allowed to generate into a mere opportunity for piling a large fortune in the shortest possible time, no particular ability being required from the holder of the post, who was always a Manchu.

Then followed a mission to Europe, at the head of which we now find a Manchu of high rank, an Imperial Duke, sent to study the mysteries of constitutional government, which was henceforth promised to the people, so soon as its introduction might be practicable.  In the midst of these attractive promises (1904-5) came the Russo-Japanese war, with all its surprises.  Among other causes to which the Manchu court ascribed the success of the Japanese, freedom from the opium vice took high rank, and this led to really serious enactments against the growth and consumption of opium in China.  Continuous and strenuous efforts of philanthropists during the preceding half century had not produced any results at all; but now it seemed as though this weakness had been all along the chief reason for China’s failures in her struggles with the barbarian, and it was to be incontinently stamped out.  Ten years’ grace was allowed, at the end of which period there was to be no more opium-smoking in the empire.  One awkward feature was that the Empress Dowager herself was an opium-smoker; the difficulty, however, was got over by excluding from the application of the edict of 1906 persons over sixty years of age.  Whatever may be thought of the wisdom of this policy, which so far has chiefly resulted in the substitution of morphia, cocaine, and alcohol, the thoroughness and rapidity with which it has been carried out, can only command the admiration of all; of those most who know China best.

CHAPTER XI—­HSUeAN T`UNG