they have sought constantly to bring it about that Chinese laws be altered upon the model of the Occidental legal systems.
Foreign influence and foreign pressure contributed to bringing on the revolution of 1911. Revolutions the Chinese had had before, plenty of them, but never one which at the same time overthrew a dynasty, declared against the principle of monarchy, and undertook to establish a government based on principles of election, representation and responsibility.
When the governments of the foreign Powers dictated the provisions of the treaties which they compelled the Manchu rulers of China to sign, they wrote into these treaties some provisions calling for performance which neither the Manchus nor any other Chinese government could enforce. Now, the Manchus and the Mandarinate who signed those contracts have disappeared. Today the Chinese people are convinced, rightly or wrongly, that the rules and treaty provisions which the foreign governments cite as rightfully applicable to the contacts between China and the foreign Powers are inequitable and intolerably disadvantageous to one of the parties concerned, namely the Chinese. Moreover, they contend that neither the Chinese people nor the officials who represented them ever agreed to some of the provisions in the sense of the interpretations which foreigners have chosen to put upon them.
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