and conveniences of life which scientific discovery and method have brought within the reach of the populations of the West, he declares that this would not result in the materialising but rather in the spiritualising of Chinese civilisation. It may be noted that Dr Hu does not support his argument by any reference to Christianity in either its theological or its social aspects. He himself, indeed, is not attracted by any religious system, Eastern or Western, and quite frankly avows himself to be an atheist. This makes his insistence on the essentially spiritualistic basis of Western civilisation all the more striking.

But while the Chinese of to-day have learned to appreciate the spiritual and intellectual sides of European culture as well as the material side, they have ceased to stand in awe of the West, partly because the causes of Western success are no longer an unfathomable mystery. They admit that they have still much to learn from us; they do not admit that they are in any way bound to acknowledge us as a race endowed with mysterious potencies unattainable by themselves. Rightly or wrongly, they believe they have discovered the sources of European strength; they have also detected some of the features of European life that make for weakness. It is true that the main purpose of Chinese students in going to Western lands is that they may learn the secrets of Western power and influence and apply their knowledge to the conditions of their own country; but incidentally-and often greatly to their own surprisethey have stumbled upon many facts which have convinced them that the West is not invulnerable and that the recovery of the rights which China surrendered at its demand need no longer be regarded as a fantastic dream never to be realised in waking life.

Here we have one of the deep-lying causes of the present patriotic movement for the abolition of the unequal treaties' under which Europeans and Americans enjoy a privileged position in China. The desire to recover the lost rights of China is not new; it existed long before Bolshevism was ever heard of. It failed to express itself in political action-unless we can give that name to the Boxer outbreak-partly because there was no sense of national unity, no national self-con

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sciousness, and these were necessary to the success of any such movement; and partly because in China there was a feeling of despondency resulting from previous humiliations at the hands of the militant West, and an apathetic acquiescence in the theory that open strife with the West was bound to end in disaster and in placing China still more definitely under Western domination.

The theories upon which these feelings of despondency and apathy were based have crumbled to pieces. Many of the returned students have had strange reports to give their countrymen of the marvels of the West; they have also had a good deal to report about the many evils and unsolved problems (social, economic, moral, and political) of Western civilisation. The tidings they have brought home, especially in recent years, have kindled in China a new hope that the age of European dominaertion in the Far East is nearing its end, and that at no distant date the Chinese may be able to speak to the Western Powers on terms of equality, and be reasonably sure of being listened to with respect if not with fear.

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This hope might have remained long buried in the hearts of a few patriots but for the huge catastrophe of the World War. As far as the Chinese were concerned, the war had two great results. In the first place, it taught them that Europe was not a unity, but a house divided against itself. They had known for centuries, of course, that Europe was made up of separate states, and indeed they had often employed their ingenuity in playing off one against the other. Nevertheless, the Anglo-French alliance in the Chinese war of 1860 (when we burned the Summer Palace), and still more the alliance against China of thirteen Powers (eleven of which were European) in 1900, had made them feel that the Western world was essentially one, and that the occasional quarrels among the European Powers were no more than the disagreements of the members of a single family who would always maintain their solidarity against the rest of the world. Several educated Chinese have told me that when the Great War first broke out they regarded it as nothing more or less than a civil war. Gradually, as they perceived the extreme bitterness

and hatred with which it was waged, they became convinced that Europe, if it had been a unity in the past, had now ceased to be so, and that this was due to the inordinate growth of the spirit of nationalism in its several component parts. 'We too,' they said, 'must develop the spirit of nationalism, and then-'

The second important result of the Great War for China arose out of the assiduity with which she was praised, coaxed, courted, and flattered by the Allies, who in their efforts to persuade her to enter the lists against the Central Powers, allowed her to suppose that among her rewards would be a definite improvement in her international status and her recognition by the Great Powers of an honoured equal. Only one of the Powers concerned struck an inharmonious note. This was Japan, which, taking advantage of the preoccupation of the Western Powers, presented at Peking the well-known Twenty-one Demands, the effects of which, if agreed to in their entirety, would have been to turn China into a Japanese Protectorate. In face of Chinese indignation and the disapproval of the West, the most obnoxious demands were not insisted upon, but China has never forgotten the incident and has never forgiven Japan for the wound then inflicted on her national dignity.

These events took place in 1915. May 7 and 9 (the days on which Japan's ultimatum was presented to Yuan Shih-kai and accepted by him) have been placed on the list of those Humiliation Days' which are annually observed by the student-class in China for the express purpose of fostering the new spirit of patriotism among the people and of reminding them that China has rights that must be recovered and wrongs that must be redressed.

In March 1917, China was persuaded to break off diplomatic relations with Germany, and on Aug. 14 she declared war on Germany and Austria. She did this half-heartedly, and made no attempt to take an active part in the war that was to end war and to establish the supremacy of right over might. The truth is, the Chinese were not greatly impressed by the anti-German propaganda carried on in China by the Allies, and a large section of their intellectuals' took a very cynical view of the declarations of the Allies regarding their

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war aims and their professed anxiety about the liberation of all oppressed peoples. However, the Chinese were naturally anxious that their country should derive in as much benefit as possible from a world-convulsion in which they found themselves in the novel situation of being ranged with one group of Western Powers against art another; and bearing in mind the flattering encomiums which the Press, Pulpits, and Parliaments of the Allied Powers had passed upon their noble and ancient civilisation and their lofty ethical ideals, they sent their delegates to the Paris Conference with every confidence that at last they were to recover the rights that had been wrested from them in the past and to take their proper place among the great nations of the world.

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It is unnecessary to go into the details of the events which followed. China asked for the abolition of extraterritoriality, for tariff autonomy, for the cancellation of foreign spheres of influence, for the withdrawal of foreign troops, foreign post-offices and telegraphs and wireless installations on Chinese soil, and for the surrender of leased territories' and foreign concessions and settlements. All these requests were set aside, on the ground that the Peace Conference had no authority to deal with them. But it could not refuse to take into consideration the further Chinese demand that the territorial and other holdings of the Germans in Shantung, all of which had passed into the hands of Japan as a result of military operations, should be restored to China. Here too, however, the Chinese were bitterly disillusioned. The Conference ended by confirming the Japanese in the possession of their war-gains in Shantung, though on the understanding that the matters at issue would be settled by direct negotiations between the two Powers principally concerned, and that Japan would, of her free will, fulfil the aspirations and expectations of the Chinese people.

The news of these decisions caused an uproar in China that has reverberated to the present day. The Chinese thought they had been badly 'let down' by their Western Allies, and scorned the idea of direct negotiations with Japan. The first patriotic demonstration took place at Tsinan, the capital of Shantung, on April 20, 1919. This was followed by great meetings of

students in Peking on May 4 and June 3, at which the demand was put forward that the Chinese Government should refuse to sign the Peace Treaty at Versailles. A boycott of Japanese goods was declared, and on June 19 a crowd of Peking students burned down the house of Ts'ao Ju-lin, a cabinet minister who was accused of having accepted huge bribes from Japan and of having betrayed the vital interests of his country. Similar accusations were made against Lu Tsung-yu, formerly Chinese Minster at Tokyo, and as he happened to be a guest at Ts'ao Ju-lin's house during the attack, he was violently assaulted and badly wounded. Ts'ao himself succeeded in making his escape without injury, but he was allowed by the Government to resign office and has never since made an attempt to take a prominent part in public life. The action of the students was, to say the least, high-handed and unmannerly, but it gave the pro-Japanese party a shock from which it never recovered, and the fact that the students had succeeded in driving a hated cabinet minister from office, and that neither Ts'ao himself nor the Government dared to punish them for their violence or prosecute them in the Courts, fully justified the students in claiming a great victory for the patriotic movement. Still more cause had they to congratulate themselves when, on June 28, it was notified from Paris that the Chinese Government, owing to popular manifestations of discontent, had instructed the Chinese delegates to refrain from signing the Treaty of Peace.

A few days earlier on June 16-an important meeting had been held at Shanghai, at which was founded the Chinese National Federation of Students. This and allied students' associations henceforth became the organising centres of the patriotic movement throughout China, and it was through their exertions and activities that China began to develop that national consciousness the lack of which had always made it impossible for her, in the past, to act and speak as a united people.

It is impossible, in this article, to indicate the successive steps by which the movement has advanced, and the metamorphoses which it has undergone, during the past seven years. So far as it has remained a purely nationalist and patriotic movement, it is deserving of