uch date had been fixed, and
that the newspaper reports to that effect were inventions. In order
specially to conciliate Japan, a high official was appointed to proceed
on an Embassy to Tokio to grant special industrial concessions--a
manoeuvre which was met with the official refusal of the Tokio
Government to be so placated. Peking was coldly informed that owing to
"court engagements" it would be impossible for the Emperor of Japan to
receive any Chinese Mission. After this open rebuff attention was
concentrated on "the punitive expedition" to chastise the disaffected
South, 80,000 men being put in the field and a reserve of 80,000
mobilized behind them. An attempt was also made to win over waverers by
an indiscriminate distribution of patents of nobility. Princes, Dukes,
Marquises, Viscounts and Barons were created in great batches overnight
only to be declined in very many cases, one of the most precious
possessions of the Chinese race being its sense of humour. Every one, or
almost every one, knew that the new patents were not worth the paper
they were written on, and that in future years the members of this
spurious nobility would be exposed to something worse than contempt.
France was invited to close the Tonkin frontier, but this request also
met with a rebuff, and revolutionists and arms were conveyed in an
ever-more menacing manner into the revolted province of Yunnan by the
French railways. A Princedom was at length conferred on Lung Chi Kwang,
the Military Governor of Canton, Canton being a pivotal point and Lung
Chi Kwang, one of the most cold-blooded murderers in China, in the hope
that this would spur him to such an orgy of crime that the South would
be crushed. Precisely the opposite occurred, since even murderers are
able to read the signs of the times. Attempts were likewise made to
enforce the use of the new Imperial Calendar, but little success crowned
such efforts, no one outside the metropolis believing for a moment that
this innovation possessed any of the elements of permanence.

Meanwhile the monetary position steadily worsened, the lack of money
becoming so marked as to spread panic. Still, in spite of this, the
leaders refused to take warning, and although the political impasse was
constantly discussed, the utmost concession the monarchists were willing
to make was to turn China into a Federal Empire with the provinces
constituted into self-governing units. The over-issue of paper currency
to m