no bias regarding any affair. They should hold up as their main
principle of administration the policy that only reality will count
and deal out reward or punishment with strict promptness. Let all
our generals, officials, soldiers and people all, all, act in
accordance with this ideal.

This attempt at an _Amende honorable_, so far from being well-received,
was universally looked upon as an admission that Yuan Shih-kai had
almost been beaten and that a little more would complete his ruin.
Though, as we have said, the Northern troops were fighting well in his
cause on the upper reaches of the great Yangtsze, the movement against
him was now spreading as though it had been a dread contagious disease,
the entire South uniting against Peking. His promise to open a proper
Legislative Chamber on 1st May was met with derision. By the middle of
April five provinces--Yunnan, Kueichow, Kwangsi, Kwangtung and
Chekiang--had declared their independence, and eight others were
preparing to follow suit. A Southern Confederacy, with a Supreme
Military Council sitting at Canton, was organized, the brutal Governor
Lung Chi Kwang having been won over against his master, and the scholar
Liang Ch'i-chao flitting from place to place, inspiring move after move.
The old parliament of 1913 was reported to be assembling in Shanghai,
whilst terrorist methods against Peking officials were bruited abroad
precipitating a panic in the capital and leading to an exodus of
well-to-do families who feared a general massacre.

An open agitation to secure Yuan Shih-kai's complete retirement and
exile now commenced. From every quarter notables began telegraphing him
that he must go,--including General Feng Kuo-chang who still held the
balance of power on the Yangtsze. Every enemy Yuan Shih-kai had ever had
was also racing back to China from exile. By the beginning of May the
situation was so threatening that the Foreign Legations became alarmed
and talked of concerting measures to insure their safety. On the 6th May
came the _coup de grace_. The great province of Szechuan, which has a
population greater than the population of France, declared its
independence; and the whole Northern army on the upper reaches of the
Yangtsze was caught in a trap. The story is still told with bated breath
of the terrible manner in which Yuan Shih-kai sated his rage when this
news reached him--Szechuan being governed by a man he had hitherto
thoroughly tr