that this imposition is for the benefit of the despised foreigner may lead to disorder and repudiation; and repudiation will raise again the question of Chinese autonomy.
So long as race hatred controls the Chinese people the peace of the world will be in danger, as the destiny of that country is intimately connected with the interests of all the great powers of the earth; and, since the acquisition of the Philippines, not less with the United States than the most interested of other nations. The "yellow peril" has been much discussed by writers and statesmen who have studied the problems of the Far East. Since the Japanese war and the recent easy march of the allied forces to Peking, the tendency has been to decry and scout the danger. But it is scarcely an exaggeration, in presence of its history and attainments, to assert that no nation or race of ancient or modern times has stronger claim than the Chinese to be called a great people. The fact that the United States has been compelled to violate its early traditions and much vaunted principles in the exclusion of the Chinese from competition with its own people is a high testimony to their race capacity and endurance.
Wensiang, the wisest and most farseeing Chinese statesman of modern times, was accustomed to say to foreign diplomats and others who urged speedy reforms: "You are all too anxious to awake us and start us on a new road, and you will do it; but you will all regret it, for, once awaking and started, we shall go fast and far,—farther than you think, much faster than you want." Sir Robert Hart, who has made a
