o aid the Japanese teacher in the great work of propaganda; the
Japanese monk and the Japanese policeman are to be dispersed like
skirmishers throughout the land; Japanese arsenals are to supply all the
necessary arms, or failing that a special Japanese arsenal is to be
established; Japanese advisers are to give the necessary advice in
finance, in politics, in every department--foreshadowing a complete and
all embracing political control. Never was a more sweeping programme of
supervision presented, and small wonder if Chinese when they learnt of
this climax exclaimed that the fate of Korea was to be their own.

For a number of weeks after the presentation of these demands everything
remained clothed in impenetrable mystery, and despite every effort on
the part of diplomatists reliable details of what was occurring could
not be obtained. Gradually, however, the admission was forced that the
secrecy being preserved was due to the Japanese threat that publicity
would be met with the harshest reprisals; and presently the veil was
entirely lifted by newspaper publication and foreign Ambassadors began
making inquiries in Tokio. The nature and scope of the Twenty-one
Demands could now be no longer hidden; and in response to the growing
indignation which began to be voiced by the press and the pressure which
British diplomacy brought to bear, Japan found it necessary to modify
some of the most important items. She had held twenty-four meetings at
the Chinese Foreign Office, and although the Chinese negotiators had
been forced to give way in such matters as extending the "leasing"
periods of railways and territories in Manchuria and in admitting the
Japanese right to succeed to all German interests and rights in Shantung
(Group I and II), in the essential matters of the Hanyehping concessions
(Group III) and the noxious demands of Group V China had stood
absolutely firm, declining even to discuss some of the items.

Accordingly Japanese diplomacy was forced to restate and re-group the
whole corpus of the demands. On the 26th April, acting under direct
instructions from Tokio, the Japanese Minister to Peking presented a
revised list for renewed consideration, the demands being expanded to
twenty-four articles (in place of the original twenty-one largely
because discussion had shown the necessity of breaking up into smaller
units some of the original articles). Most significant, however, is the
fact that Group V (which in its ori