China from Within, By Stanley Smith, B.A. (Marshall Brothers. 3s.
6d.)—Mr. Stanley Smith gives us much informa- tion about recent events in China. His account of the massacres is more detailed than any that we have yet seen, and he brings into prominence the antagonism between the Manchu and the Chinese elements in the ruling class. A specially important chapter is 11, in which he discusses " The Causes of the Uprising." The chief cause he finds in the ignorance, super- stition, and pride of the Manchu officials, greatly fostered, he thinks, by the influence o' the Confucian writings. Another i cause he sees in the seizure of territory by foreign Powers, especially the occupation of ciao-chow by Germany. Missionaries he acquits, excepting, however, the Roman Catholics, whose assumption of civil rank he holds to be a fatal mistake. It is the question of the temporal power "cropping up" in the Far East. The other causes may be summed up in the expression " hatred of Western civilisation." One thing more we must say,—if only a part of what is said of the Chinese Ambassadors at London, Washington, and St. Petersburg is true, they ought to have been sent off long ago.
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