容闳中国国会《宣言》足本全译并注

The Translation and Vores of Rong Hong's "Chinese National Association Manifesto"

光绪二十四年(1898年)"戊戌变法"失败、容闳托迹上海租界,积极参与改良及保皇活动。光绪二十六年七月一日(1900年7月26日),唐才常在上海成立中国国会,容闳被公推为议长并拟定对外《宣言》。有关此宣言内容,一直未见全面披露,学者们大多据冯自由《中华民国开国前革命史》所录之"大意",或据陈善伟《唐才常年谱长编》管窥全豹。前者未见英文,后者引日人《井上雅二日记》,录有英文全文。但笔者观其文体、遣词用字,似乎仅为草稿,非定稿。笔者近日从British Documents on Foreign Affairs——Reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print(《英国外交文献之外交部密件》),发现此宣言之全文并译出。宣言强调集会之维新党人痛斥满清政府腐败无能,议决不承认清政府为中国合法政府,欲重立光绪为帝,实行立宪帝制,以实现公民自由、宪政自由、信仰自由及言论自由,并以民有、民治、民享为宗旨,建立清正廉明之新政府,翦除一切社会及政治罪恶。

After the fail of Hundred Days＇Reform of 1898, Rong Hong took up quarters in the foreign settlement of Shanghai. But he continued to take an active part in the affairs connect with the reform movement, and reinstatement of the newly ousted Emper- or Guangxu. On July 26, 1900, Tang Caichang established the Chinese National Association in Shanghai, Rang Hong was elec- ted President. Rong then prepared a Manifesto for the meeting. But the full text of it was never known to the world. Nowadays, most scholars get a crude picture of it, either from Revolutionary History of the Republic of China by Feng Zi-you, a most promi- nent revolutionary, or The Chronicle of Tang Caichang by Sin-wai Chan, Professor of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. The former did not attach the English original, while the latter came with the English text, which was based on The Diary of Inoue Masaji and was, telling from its style and terminology, apparently a draft version. Recently, the Translator has discovered its full text from British Documents on Foreign Affairs Reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print, which is trans- lated in Chinese in this text. In the Manifesto, members of the Reform Party lambasted the Qing Government for its total corrup- tion and inability. As a result of their deliberation, they declared to the world that they no longer recognised the Qing Government as a political organization. They desired to reinstate Emperor Guangxu to construct a Constitutional Empire, with an aim to a- chieve civil freedom and constitutional liberty, as well as freedom of conscience and faith, of private judgment and speech. They also resolved that it was their great political doctrine that the new Government would be of the people, by the people, and for thepeople, that they would make the new Government and its administration honest and pure, and that they would abolish all socialand political evils.