Excerpt from The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Vol. 2<br><br>Instructed friends of China have generally been hopeful of her future. Among them it may confidently be said that the most friendly and the wisest in counsel was Sir Robert Hart, who, in the letter cited above, wrote as follows I am not down-hearted about the future of this country. The country will stagger onwards through all sorts of mistakes, but it will be an advance always, and, provided wisdom increases with strength, I don't think the latter will be misused more than, or even as much as is the case, elsewhere. This present history demonstrates, in its writer's opinion, that the Manchus con tributed but little to the reorganisation and development of their empire; and that advance - progress - reform must proceed from the work of the government or govern ments which will follow the ta-tsing dynasty. That reform and development may bring an end to corruption, disorganisation and weakness is the fervent wish of every friend of China.<br><br>My thanks are due to several of my friends who have read over some chapters narrating events in which they were principals, and whose suggestions have been of great value. For the Period of Conflict I was much indebted to the criticism of my friend, the late Mr. William Cart wright and for these later volumes, covering the period of his work in China, his suggestions and criticisms must have been of the greatest value.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.