China's Awakening

CHINA'S AWAKENING.

Aims of Reform Association Discussed by Its Leader.

RETHRONING EMPEROR THE CHIEF

Leong Kai Cheu Says Without His Aid Nothing Can Be Accomplished.  Progressive Ideas of the Occident Spreading Throughout the Empire Despite the Empress Dowager's Opposition.

Professor Leong Kai Cheu, founder and vice president of the Chinese Empire Reform association, ex-teacher in the palace of the emperor of China and second to Kang Yu Wei, the leader of the Chinese national reform movement, which despite the unrelenting opposition of the empress dowager is spreading all over the empire, arrived in New York the other evening, having come from Japan by way of Canada, says the New York Times.

This is the first visit to America of Leong Kai Cheu, who is regarded as the most powerful man in Chinese education and politics today. He founded the Chinese Empire Reform association in 1897, and now its membership far exceeds 3.000,000, with branches covering every part of the world where Chinamen reside. There are on!y two parties in China, that of the empress dowager and the Reform association. The former is still the stronger, but its power is on the wane, while the reform association is growing every day.

Professor Leong's visit to the United States is for the purpose of stirring up enthusiasm among the various branch organizations of the association which exist in almost every large city in the country. The head of this movement is only thirty years old and has a boyish face. He dresses like an American and looks like an Americanized Chinaman, although he does not speak English.

Professor Leong was perfectly frank in discussing the aims of his reform organization.

While I have not been in China officially in some years," said he, "I have been there a good many times under assumed names and in disguise and am thoroughly alive to the events as they shape themselves in the empire. All the world is by this time acquainted with the aims of the Chinese reformers. Of course our principal aim is the rethronement of the emperor, for without his aid we can accomplish nothing in the way of reform.

"The empress dowager is hopelessly set against any movement whatsoever that will tend in the slightest degree to get away from the customs of ancient China. All her protestations and all her promises are absolutely insincere. and we who know her best have not the least idea of accomplishing anything through her.

"The emperor, while he is a Mantchoo and a man of no very conspicuous ability, nevertheless is imbued with the idea that the empire to progress must get in line with the other nations of the earth and abandon many useless and handicapping customs. He has got all of his ideas of western civilization from Japanese, English and American sources, and it is these three peoples that he would take for his models in fashioning a new regime.

"The party of the dowager empress, or, rather, the following of the empress dowager, is still all powerful in the empire, but its strength Is rapidly waning, and even before her death the overthrow of her power may be brought about. Her death, however, is sure to see the beginning of the new era in China, for we are ready to make ourselves felt in the government. It would surprise you to know the number of men who are connected directly with the Peking government who are members of the reform party. Our next aim is the framing of a constitution and the establishment of a house of parliament similar in general respects to that of England, where our sons may take a hand in the government. The third aim is a thorough reform in the matter of education. China to keep pace with the other nations of the earth must establish a system of education on modern lines.

"The Chinese reformers do not wish the empire to break away from all of its old traditions. No country can give up all of its traditions and gain by it. What we want is simply the addition of certain essential principles of western civilization into our national life. The emperor realizes this, and these schemes, begun already and interrupted, will be resumed, and that very soon. I might add here that the nations to feel the first effects of beneficial reform in China will be the United States, England and Japan. The Chinese have obtained their first and only impressions of foreign civilizations from these three countries and will mold their new national life from a composite idea gained from the three.

"As to the Boxers and the Boxer movement, the Boxer organizations still exist, but their influence is reactionary and will never make itself seriously felt again, for the whole country is rapidly becoming imbued with the idea of reform."

As to China's attitude toward Russia and the latter's occupation of Manchuria, Professor Leong said that there was little doubt in China that Russia intended under the very first pretext to seize the territory for permanent occupation. The idea held in some quarters that a secret understanding between China and Russia exists was absolutely erroneous.