asses of the
community should be specially represented: and provision was therefore
made in the voting for the inclusion of "learned scholars," Chambers of
Commerce, and "oversea merchants," whose votes were to be directly
recorded by their special delegates. To secure uniformly satisfactory
results, the whole election was placed absolutely and without
restriction in the hands of the high provincial authorities, who were
invited to bestow on the matter their most earnest attention.

[Illustration: Modern Peking: The Palace Entrance lined with Troops.
Note the New-type Chinese Policeman in foreground.]

[Illustration: The Premier General Tuan Chi-jui, Head of the Cabinet
which decided to declare war on Germany.]

In a Mandate, issued in response to this Bill, Yuan Shih-kai merely
limits himself to handing over the control of the elections and voting
to the local authorities, safe in the knowledge that every detail of the
plot had been carefully worked out in advance. By this time the fact
that a serious and dangerous movement was being actively pushed had been
well-impressed on the Peking Legations, and some anxiety was publicly
manifested. 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.[18]
Nevertheless, her warning had an unmistakable note about it and
occasioned grave anxiety, since the ultimatum of the previous May in
connection with the Twenty-one Demands had not been forgotten. At the
beginning of November the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs, replying
verbally to these representations, alleged that the movement had gone
too far for it to be stopped and insisted that no apprehensions need be
felt by the Foreign Powers regarding the public safety. Dissatisfied by
this reply all the Entente Powers, now including France and Italy,
renewed their representations, receiving a few days later a formal Note
in which absolute guarantees were given that law and order would be
sedulously preserved. Baffled by this firmness, and conscious that
further intervention in such matter would be fraught with grave
difficulties, the Entente Powers decided to maintain a watchful attitude
but to