ountrymen in placing such men beyond
the pale of humanity.

A vital issue is involved. It is my duty to lay before you my
inmost thought, so that suspicion may be dissipated. Those who know
have the right to impose their censure. It is for public opinion to
take due notice.

[Illustration: Silk-reeling done in the open under the Walls of Peking.]

[Illustration: Modern Peking: A Run on a Bank.]

[Illustration: The Re-opening of Parliament on August 1st, 1916, after
three years of dictatorial rule.]

Moreover Yuan Shih-kai had also shown in his selection and use of
foreign Advisers, that he was determined to proceed in such a manner as
to advertise his suspicion and enmity of Japan. After the Coup d'etat of
the 4th November, 1913, and the scattering of Parliament, it was an
American Adviser who was set to work on the new "Constitution"; and
although a Japanese, Dr. Ariga, who was in receipt of a princely salary,
aided and abetted this work, his endorsement of the dictatorial rule was
looked upon as traitorous by the bulk of his countrymen. Similarly, it
was perfectly well-known that Yuan Shih-kai was spending large sums of
money in Tokio in bribing certain organs of the Japanese Press and in
attempting to win adherents among Japanese members of Parliament.
Remarkable stories are current which compromise very highly-placed
Japanese but which the writer hesitates to set down in black and white
as documentary proof is not available. In any case, be this as it may,
it was felt in Tokio that the time had arrived to give a proper
definition to the relations between the two states,--the more so as Yuan
Shih-kai, by publicly proclaiming a small war-zone in Shantung within
the limits of which the Japanese were alone permitted to wage war
against the Germans, had shown himself indifferent to the majesty of
Japan. The Japanese having captured Kiaochow by assault before the end
of 1914 decided to accept the view that a _de facto_ Dictatorship
existed in China. Therefore on the 18th of January, 1915, the Japanese
Minister, Dr. Hioki, personally served on Yuan Shih-kai the now famous
Twenty-one Demands, a list designed to satisfy every present and future
need of Japanese policy and to reduce China to a state of vassalage.

CHAPTER VI

THE TWENTY-ONE DEMANDS

Although the press of the world gave a certain prominence at the time to
the astounding _demarche_ with which we now have to deal, there was s