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¢ AN AUDIENCE WITH THE | PRESIDENT OF CHINA By ALBERT R. CARMAN > al { President Id Yuan Hung received |--two Cenadion school chums, | . me In private audience in the Winter {though now adventuring in the far- | palace within the Forbidden City of [ff and mysterious Forbidden City | Pekin, This is a very unusual hon- lof the Manchu Emperors of China. | or. I mention this feature of the af- i fair quite freely because it was not | The official interpreter was a | an honor due to any merit of mine-- brisk, bright-eyed man, in perfectly | & casual travelling journelist--but [correct afternoon European dress one that was conferred on me be- 'and turned out to be a graduate of | . cause I had a powerful friend at Harvard. Wo had hardly sat down the Chinese Court. My friend is [in his part of the Palace to chat till "Ferguson of China," easily the [the President should be ready to | most influential foreigner to-day in receive us when they brought two | * China, a Canadian boy of whom I [cups of tea. I unwittingly broke all | want sometime to tell you. He had arranged this "audience" by virtue of his personal influence with the President at a period when no Chin- ese official had much time to spend on strangers; for Canton was in the midst of a very mixed military me- Bee, Peking itself was full of intrigue and the disturbing China New Year was at hand. The night I got to Peking, Dr. Ferguson said, 3; "You have only one fixed engage- . ment for tomorrow, an audience with the Ppesident in the Palace at 3 pm." "Does he speak English?" I en-| quired faintly. "Not a word," said Dr. Ferguson. "*T'l see you through." And as my . friend talks Chinese like a native, * 1 dismissed the whole business from 5S my mind. I could see easily what would happen. It wouldn't matter what I said. Dr. Ferguson would say the right thing to the President and tell me the answer--and what to Pretend to say next. But as the Ferguson motor-car passed the saluting sentries at the great gate into the Forbidden City =-because of a special insignia which only a few cars of high officials = earry--my friend remarked: "No 1 shall not go in with you. The Pres- ident has his own interpreters; and they would leave it too much to me #f I were there." : So I began to think hastily--all fn a minute--what I should like to _ ask the President of China; the of- ficial head of four hundred million human beings, by long odds the fargest number in the world even nominally under one ruler. Present- ly tho car stopped before an even more imposing gateway--these Pe- king gates with their soaring arch- ways and elaborately carved and @orgeously colored triple roofs are one of the architectural wonders of the world--and be began a walk through endless corridors and across * broad court-yards and around unex- _ Pected corners where no stranger tould possibly find his way. =. "You'd get lost in here, Bert," id Jolin Ferguson--and, in a flash, that lie between Belleville and ifton in Hastings Co., Ontario, | Chinese etiquette by promptly drink- | ing mine; for this airy ante-cham- | ber was cold and they had taken my | later that I should have waited until | my host indicated that the visit was | drawing to an end by drinking his. | Presently we were summoned and | went out through saluting sentries | and bowing officials till 1 saw across another, and as it proved a last, | courtyard a broad inclined roadway ! crossing a frozen moat and lined | with richly-carved marble figures, leading up to a veranda behind {which a door opened into a lofty pa- |yilion, The Winter Palace of the | Manchus--so long hidden from the world--is in reality a scattered group of palaces, some long and low; and vast courts and even islanded |lakes lie between them. Half way {down the inclined road stood a man- bare-headed, in a welcoming atti- tude. Behind him were soldiers and attendants, I thought for a moment that the President had shown me the impossible courtesy of coming out to meet me. But the welcoming fig- ure turned out to be a major-domo who presently ushered the interpret- er and myself into the presidential apartments, President Li is a quiet looking, middle-aged man with a democratic manner and a most genial smile. We all bowed and then he motioned me to a peat between himself and the interpreter, and immediately two more cups of tea were served. Fortunately I kept my hands off mine. At once I felt that I could talk to this man quite freely of any- thing that came Into my head. So I forgot all formal compliments and plunged in madias res by asking him about the disturbed conditicn of China, Hao said that it was due to "mil- itarism"--which was, by the way, 'precisely the answer I had got to the same question from Dr. C. C, Wu, one of Sun Yat Sen's chief support- ers, a few days before on the Hong- Kong-Shanghai steamer. Dr. Wu was then on his way from Canton to Shanghai presumably to persuade Sun Yat Son that the time was ripe for his retura to the Southern City, where he subsequently went. President Li defined "militarism" as the far too great and costly mili- cvercoat away from me. I learned | you and Rs Naturesendsawarn- one person out of five past forty escapes. younger are subject to it as well. Be on your guard. Brush your teeth with forhan's FOR THE GUM More than a tooth --it checks 35¢ and 60c in tubes ne -------------- tary activities of "the military Gov- ernors."" They kept armies mobilis- ed to attack each other and defy the central government, and these arm- ies were at once a burden and a men- ace to the country. But as these mil- itary Governors fell one by one, they would be replaced by peaceful Gov- ernors who would disband these arm- ies and turn them back to agricul- ture. It sounded a simple solution, but will they disband so long as veiled bandistry pays better than hard work? Some very well-inform- ed authorities say they must be- cause their Governors can no long- er pay them; but others point to Chang Tsao Ling, the "King of Man- churia" and his rapidly growing force, insisting that it is growing precisely because he does pay. I switched the conversation to railways, telling the President how comfortable we had found the Chin- ese roads after the rolling mortuary chambers they use in India; but I cannot say that he was flattered. He took all that for granted. of course, the Chinese railways were as good as the best. He seemed more pleased at mention of the Washing- ton Conference and the achieve- ments of. the Chinese delegation there, ' By this time, we were getting on s0 well that I thought I would ven- ture on the delicate subject of our Canadian restrictions on Chinese immigration. The ice was a bit thin, perhaps, but I had skated all over it in India with complete safety. The President received the sub- ject affably and then delivered quite a little monologue on it. I never « "And how is baby?" per 2° is just dandy and "And what have you look so well?" of course, it worried me after him." CRAY, you'are looking well." : "Yes, I am feeling fine, too." _ as good as can been doing to "Oh, I got run-down nursing baby and began to get discouraged I was feeling so miserable. I suppose it was my nervous condition that got baby restless, and then, trying to look "1 thought you looked so worn-out when I was in last time." sure that my sys- y built up before quit- wished so much that I understood Chinese. The interpreter was correct, nc doubt, but he was much briefer than the President. What I got was practically this: | "Canada is quite right to keep out Chinese laborers. Canada does not reed Chinese kborere, for she has plenty of laborers of her own, But Canada does need Chinese scholars, for she has none of her own, Thus she would be very foolish to deny {herself the advantage of receiving Chinese scholars just because she {does not need Chinese laborers." If you will read that last para- graph carefully and get its full im- pact, yod will have the key to very much of Chinese policy toward" the ioutside world. President Li was thinking of Canada precisely as the Canadian missionary thinks of China.-He was concerned for the mo- ment solely with our side of the auestion--not at _all with zany wounded susceptibilities the Chinese might conceivably suffer from be- cause of our restrictions. It was wholly a matter of what would be good for Canada. He was not inter- ested in my suggestion that, of course, "China did not want to lose any of her own people--that she would want to keep them at home which would be the effect of our re- strictive policy." I might just as well have suggested to a Canadian mis- sionary that Canada wanted to keep her best people at home. The mis- stoenary would say: "Yes but China needs missionar- ies more than Canada does." So President 14 said, in effect: "Yes, but Canada needs scholars more than China does." The only difference is that Presl- dent Li feels that China would be giving out of her measures abund- ance, while Canada feels that she is sparing as much as possible out of her poverty, : This was not precisely the angle from which I had intended to dis- cuss this question which seemed de- licate to me, but not a bit to the President. I talked of "gentleman's agreements" and the difficulties be- ing wholly economic and not to the smallest degree racial, etc., etc., but the President cared nothing for these phases of the question and harked back at some length to his theory that Canada needed scholars--and so she does in the Chinese sense of the term. = -- We often wonder how it is that a nation of four hundred millions sub- mits so tamely to be tweaked by the rose' and generally ordered abou: by comparatively little nations from Europe and America--and even by the Japs, whom the Chinese most heartily despise. We say it is be- cause the . Ohinese cannot fight, though "Chinese" Gordon could have told us 'better--that they have no patriotism, no~ cohesion, no seif-re- spect--though no one more highly esteema himself or bis special type of civilization than a Chinese gent- Joeman. . 'We never think to find the explan- ation in a Chinaman's sereme comn- fidence in his own unchallenged sup- eriority. Yet that is very likely where it lies. What does the display of sup- erior force mean to him? Only the temporary physical triumph of a ruder people who will very soon be conquered by and eagerly adopt his superipr and much more cultured Chinese civilization. 'The Mangols came and conquered him; and then he conquered them--they hecame Chinese. The Manchus came, and should these outer barbarians from Europe and America be any dif- ferent? They may have more physic- al force for the moment, but present- ly they will bow--as all barbarians have bowed in the past--to Chinese culture learnings, philosophy and art. China has only to wait. But you mustn't 'imagine that I thought of all this while watching President Li's fine face light up from time to time with a smile as he caught the meaning of any lat- est question from the interpreter-- I had begun to wonder rather when and how I should go. The Presi- dent showed no sign of terminat- ing the interview, as is the custom and privilege of rulers. Yet I knew that he was terribly busy with far- reaching and highly explosive pro- blems. I felt I could not trespass any longer; but could I dismiss the President of four hundred million people? I wished with all my might that 1 had thought to ask John Fergu- son about this. In the end, I took a middle course. 1 did not rise to go but I confinea@ my last remark to warm thanks to the President for receiving me so kindly and talking of great questions so informingly. He acknowledged this with a smiling bow, and I rose. We all three bowed and them the President shook hands cordially. Western fashion, The interpreter and I walked half-way across the apart- ment, and then turned and exchanged bows with the - dent, Once more at the doors, we all three bowed; and a moment Jat- er we were bowing the other wiy to officials awaiting in the antechamb- er the conclusion of the audiénce. John Ferguson and I went home by the Southern Sea--the last of the three artificial lakes that decor- ate the Western side of the Forbid- den Olty. 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