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It was known that Japan, as the active enemy of Yuan Shih-kai, could not remain permanently silent: and on the 28th October in association with Great Britain and Russia, she indeed made official inquiries at the Chinese Foreign Office regarding the meaning of the movement. She was careful, however, to declare that it was her solicitude for the general peace that alone dictated her action.
A just and merciful man, it was his intention to allow the nation to speak its mind before issuing orders on the subject; but to show that he was no advocate of the terrorist methods practised by his predecessor, he now issued a Mandate summarily abolishing the infamous Chih Fa Chu, or Military Court, which Yuan Shih-kai had turned into an engine of judicial assassination, and within whose gloomy precincts many thousands of unfortunate men had perished practically untried in the period 1911-1916.
Your telegram of the 24th inst. came duly to hand. After the form of the state has been put to the vote, the nomination of Yuan Shih-kai as emperor should be made forthwith without further voting.
Judging by the attitude hitherto adopted by Yuan Shih-kai we know he has always resorted to the policy of expediency in his diplomatic dealings, and although he may now outwardly show friendliness towards us, he will in fact rely upon the influence of the different Powers as the easiest check against us and refuse to accede to our demands.
The turbulent city of Canton, although it also rose against the authority of Peking, had been well provided for by Yuan Shih-kai. A border General, named Lung Chi-kwang, with 20,000 semi-savage Kwangsi troops had been moved near the city and at once attacked and overawed the garrison.
Furthermore, it is necessary to underline the fact that official Japan was displeased by the tacit support an uninterested British Foreign Office had consistently given to the Yuan Shih-kai régime.
There is no time in the history of China that the Head of the State has had to assume such a heavy responsibility for the protection of life and property and for the preservation of peace in Asia; and at no time in our history has the country been in greater danger than at the present moment. China can enjoy peace so long as His Excellency Yuan Shih-kai remains the President, and no longer.
Yuan Shih-kai had, indeed, not been in the slightest degree prepared for such a sensational development as war between Japan and Germany over the question of a cruiser-base established on territory leased from China; and although he considered the possibility of sending a Chinese force to co-operate in the attack on the German stronghold, that project was never matured, whilst his subsequent contrivances, notably the establishment of a so-called war-zone in Shantung, were without international value, and attracted no attention save in Japan.
Safe in the knowledge that possession is nine points of the law, Yuan Shih-kai now treated with derision the resolutions which Parliament passed that the transaction was illegal and the loan agreement null and void.
Even casual readers will have no difficulty in realizing how many lives have been lost and how greatly the country has been crippled both owing to the blind foreign support given to Yuan Shih-kai during four long and weary years and to the stupid adhesion to exploded ideas, when a little intelligence and a little generosity and sympathy would have guided the nation along very different paths.
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