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imperial rescript has abolished slavery throughout the empire and has prohibited henceforth the purchase and sale of human beings under any pretext. The reform, however, is not altogether complete as by rescript certain forms of slavery will still be tolerated. In a report made to the state department it is said that the retainers of Manchu princes are not emancipated, but it is forbidden to call them slaves. They have long enjoyed educational and other privileges although still bound to their hereditary masters.
The household slaves of the Manchus are also refused emancipation, but their status, under the law is improved. They are to be regarded as hired servants, but their services are due for an unlimited term of years, so that they are in reality perpetual slaves. Under this rescript the immemorial practice of selling children in China in times of famine is abolished, although they may be bound for a specified term, but never beyond the age of twenty-five years.
Concubinage is still to be permitted, but there is to be no bargain and sale. Such concubines are to be married with proper legal formalities and they will enjoy the protection of the law, but in reality they will be no better than perpetual slaves to the principal wife. The rescript will eventually give freedom to millions of human beings, and is declared to mark a distinct advance in civilization.
The captains of industry are far-seeing people, and as early as 1905 decided that a system of public education on similar lines as that in existence in the United States was to be inaugurated in China. The illiterate Chinaman would do all right for the old regime, but the ignorant wage slave, uninstructed in science, is not near as profitable to the master class as the educated. In 1905 not one in a hundred Chinese could read the simplest characters of his language, and it is safe to say that not more than one in five hundred had an education along tht old lines as advanced as that of our grammar schools. All this is to be changed, and by the next generation it is safe to say that the majority of the people will all have gone to school.
That the United States Government is quite a factor in this nation-wide enlightenment is very evident, as the following article published in the Philadelphia Press, October 3, 1909, shows:
