Dr. Sun Yat Sen and the Chinese Revolution

The Man Who Organized an Almost Bloodless Revolution Affecting Four Hundred and Twenty-Five Million People

THE NAMES of many great men occur to one who thinks of the events of yesterday and to-day; but to the present writer, impressed as he is by some of the giants of modern days, there seems to be none greater than Sun Yat Sen, a sketch of whose life from the pen of Joseph Mede appears in the current number of Chambers’s Journal. Sun overthrew a remarkably well-entrenched dynasty, carrying with him in this formidable task four hundred and twenty-five millions of people who were transformed from an empire into a republic, and he did this with a minimum of bloodshed unparalleled in the history of revolutions. Compare the man and his work with two men undeniably great. Napoleon had a giant intellect, but its chief result was the deluging of a continent with streams of blood and the draining of virile strength from his own country to such an extent that to this day it has not recovered. Gladstone was also a man of gigantic intellect, which he applied to making for peace; but even he could not bring about a settlement of the woes of a little island in the northern seas. Sun Yat Sen, less than twelve months ago, raised a five-striped banner, gathering as one nation five people under that banner, and starting them from beneath its fold upon a new era with a claim to take part in the comity of the world’s nations along a pathway of progress, education, and freedom interdicted hv the displaced rulers.

Who and what manner of man is this to have done such a mighty deed, which, moreover, he prepared so silently that few in the outside world knew that anything was being attempted until it was accomplished, and few who knew that something was being done knew the man who "was doing it?

Dr. Sun Yat Sen is a son of the people, horn not amongst the ruling class of China, hut in comparatively humble circumstances. A native óf Kuantung, not far from Canton, he was horn in 1867, so that, as age goes, he is still a young man. His father was a eonvert to Christianity, who was sometimes employed amongst his fellowChinese as a missionary agent by the London Missionary Society. An English lady interested herself in the son of the Chinese missionary agent, and by her help Sun, when a youth, was well grounded in a knowledge of English.

At the age of eighteen Sun Yat Sen proceeded to an Anglo-American Mission in Canton, where he was attached to the hospital in some insignificant capacity. Two years later he went to the first college of medicine established in Hong-kong, where he, the first graduate of the college, ob-

tained his diploma to practise medicine and surgery after five vears’ study. He commenced practice in the Portuguese colony of Macao, where he took up surgical work, and showed himself full of skill, coolness of judgment, and dexterity.

While at Macao he first heard of the Young China Party, in which he soon became so prominent that he found little time for any other work. At the attempt by this party to capture Canton, Sun was the only one of the prominent reformers who escaped alive. He then went through Hong-kong to Honolulu, and thence to London, and subsequently to America, North and South. During all this time he was not idle, but in every way was spreading his gospel with such a result that in 1896, while in London, he was decoyed into the Chinese Embassy in October of that year. By a well-recognized law, an embassy from a foreign country is regarded as being on its own territory in the country to which it is sent; so that the house of the Chinese Ambassador in London, under international law, was part of China, not subject to the King of Great Britain or to his Britannic Majesty’s writ. This made the position complicated, and it is understood that the intention was to get Sun Yet Sen out of England on the pretext that he was a lunatic, and send him to China, where he would soon have been minus his head. For ten days he remained a prisoner in the house of the Chinese Ambassador; and ultimately it was only by the clever diplomacy of the then Prime Minister, the great Lord Salisbury, that he was liberated.

The story of Sun ’s capture and release is as exciting as any detective yarn over which people gloat to-day. A servant-maid told off to wait upon Sun in the upper room in which he was imprisoned got her husband, who was employed as a waiter in the Ambassador’s rooms down-stairs, to take a note, to which she did not dare sign her name, to Dr. Cantlie, the lifelong friend of Sun. At midnight Dr. Cantlie heard his door-bell ring, and on going down found no one at the door, but observed and picked up a piece of paper which had been pushed underneath. He went post-haste to the local police without any result, and from there to Scotland Yard, where he was told it was not the business of the police, nor his, and that he should go home and keep quiet. In the morning Dr. Cantlie got in touch with a friend on the clerical staff at the Foreign Office; and not till that influence was felt did Scotland Yard deign to pay any attention to the matter. One ean imagine Dr. Cantlie’s feelings when, coming in the daylight under the aegis of the Foreign Office, he was received politely, and told by the police inspector that a man who was drunk or a lunatic had been there the previous midnight with the same story. Dr. Sun Yat Sen was liberated within twenty-four hours of the time for him to be shipped away to China. The history of the world might have been different from what it is and will be had that unsigned piece of paper not reached Dr. Cantlie.

This Avas not the only one of Sun Yat Sen’s many hairbreadth escapes, so numerous that much space would be required to detail them. Once, at Nanking, a man entered his cabin on board a junk and announced that he had been offered a large sum to capture him. Sun reasoned with

his visitor, with the result that the man fell at his feet and implored pardon. What was the mystery by which Sun, unarmed, conquered his captor? Personality alone supplies the answer. Sad to say, so overcome was the vistior with shame at having even thought of betraying Sun that he went away, like another in history, and hanged himself.

On another occasion two Government officials, attended by a dozen soldiers, entered Sun’s room in Canton late at night. The position was desperate, and again Sun’s personality triumped. He took up one of the sacred books on his table and commenced to read aloud; then the officers entered into conversation with him, and within two hours departed, leaving their intended victim as happy as they expressed themselves to be at the failure of their enterprise. Spies watched him in almost every country, including England and America. Frequently hired assassins entered the room he occupied. As much as one hundred thousand pounds was offered by the Manchu authorities for his capture. At all these attempts Sun only smiled. In the early stages of the movement he said his death would have been a misfortune; but in the later stages he declared that the campaign would not be ruined by his death, as the whole scheme had been worked out in detail, generals and leaders appointed, soldiers made ready, and all possible plans laid.

His other adventures are as fascinating a story as his escapes. In various disguises he traveled, on foot and in junks, over the vast territory of the Chinese Empire amongst the peasant people, mingling with the soldiers and discoursing with the highest officials, sometimes as a spectacled peddler, at other times as a Japanese dressed in the height of English fashion; but in whatever guise he was ubiquitous. The Powers of Europe and their Chancelleries knew his as a familiar face. In North and South America he visited every place where his countrymen were to be found. The financiers of the world yielded to his persuading tones, and placed at his disposal the great sum of money necessary for his campaign.

If so modest a man can be persuaded to write his biography, the most thrilling story the world has known will be unfolded. All this planning came to an end in September, 1911, when the train was fired, beginning with the province of Szechwan, and within an incredibly short space of time half of China was ablaze. By the middle of October the Manchus were beginning to feel that a great crisis was at hand, and the Regent was compelled to recall Yuan Shih-Kai, who had been summarily dismissed two years before because of his leaning towards reform. Decrees were now issued in the name of the baby Emperor, and one concession after another was promised, but all alike proved futile. The story at this stage reads like a plot in a romance worthy of a great novelist, and yet it is sober fact. In November, 1911, a cablegram was sent from Canton addressed to ‘Sun Wen, London,’ rather a vague address; but the Post-Office of London—which delivered a letter addressed ‘Brother Bob, London,’ to Robert Radclyffe Dolling, Esq., Maidman Street, Commercial Road—was not to be outdone, and wrote across the

envelope, ‘Try Chinese Legation.’ The Chinese authorities there were delighted at the opportunity afforded, as they had been vainly trying to obtain news of Sun Yat Sen’s whereabouts for some time past. They sent a messenger to Mrs. Cantlie, with the telegram in his hand, to see if she knew anything about the person to whom it was addressed . She very cleverly made a copy of it, including the Chinese characters which were written on the cablegram, and told the messenger that Sun Wen was not with lier. This was apparently the Manchus’ last chance of capturing, if possible, the head of the revolution. Two hours after the messenger had loft, Sun called upon Mrs. Cantlie, and found scores of telegrams and letters awaiting him. With them Mrs. Cantlie handed him her copy of the cable; he read it, smiled, and without a word put it in his pocket. Next day Mrs. Cantlie, being naturally curious about the cablegram, mentioned it to him in the hope 1 of getting some information, sayiüg that, if it were anything secret, of course she did not expect him to tell her, and his reply was, ‘Oh! no. Didn’t I tell you? It was asking me to be president of the new republic.’

At once Sun left for China, and on New Year’s Day, 1912, entered the republic’s capital, Nanking, being received by a salute of twenty-one guns. He assumed the presidency of the Provisional Government, swearing allegiance to the people, and taking an oath to destroy the Manchu dynasty, restore peace, and establish a Government based upon the people’s will. He volunarilv made a declaration that he was prepared to resign his office when these objects were accomplished, so as to enable the people to elect a president of united China. Within five days he issued a manifesto to the nations of the world too long to print here, but promising that all treaties entered into by the Manchus up to that date would be carried out; foreign loans and enterprises negotiated by the Manchus acknowledged; concessions granted to nations respected, together with the persons and property of foreigners; that the laws of China would be remodelled, and religious toleration ensured. The declaration conI eluded with an expression of the desire for admission into the family of nations to share its rights and responsibilities, and of the intention to co-operate in the great and noble design of building up the civilization of the world. Then the Manchu Dragon flag was displaced, and the Republican flag ; of five colored stripes, yellow, red, blue, white, and black, hoisted; and the removal of the curse of Manchu domination was emphasized by three cheers for Sun Yat Sen, which were carried miles away by thousands of assembled troops, and mingled with the booming of distant guns which, with the soldiery, had been under Manchu control until that moment.

Notwithstanding the success which has attended him, his humility leads him to say that other men will complete the work better than he. Persecuted as he has been, imprisoned, a price set on his head, stamped as an idealist, turned out of home and country, refused protection by one nation and another, until the whole world seemed to afford no place of refuge—neither in fact nor in fiction nor in the ideals of romance has any author dared to endow the

heroes oi' his creation with such a character, experiences, and success as Sun Yat Sen’s. The inner heart of his religion has never been revealed by him, but it may be gathered from a published statement of his own made just before he assumed the presidency: ‘Our greatest hope is to make the

Bible and education, as we have come to know them by residence in America and Europe, the means of conveying to our unhappy fellow countrymen what blessings may lie in the way of just laws, and what relief from their sufferings may be found through civilization.