of an ugly outlook. He was repeatedly
approached by the highest personages to give in his adhesion to Yuan
Shih-kai becoming emperor, but he persistently refused although grave
fears were publicly expressed that he would be assassinated. Upon the
formal acceptance of the Throne by Yuan Shih-kai, he had had conferred
on him a princedom which he steadfastly refused to accept; and when the
allowances of a prince were brought to him from the Palace he returned
them with the statement that as he had not accepted the title the money
was not his. Every effort to break his will proved unavailing, his
patience and calmness contributing very materially to the vast moral
opposition which finally destroyed Yuan Shih-kai.

Such was the man who was called upon to preside over the new government
and parliament which was now assembling in Peking; and certainly it may
be counted as an evidence of China's traditional luck which brought him
to the helm. General Li Yuan-hung knew well that the cool and singular
plan which had been pursued to forge a national mandate for a revival of
of the empire would take years completely to obliterate, and that the
octopus-hold of the Military Party--the army being the one effective
organization which had survived the Revolution--could not be loosened
in a day,--in fact would have to be tolerated until the nation asserted
itself and showed that it could and would be master. In the
circumstances his authority could not but be very limited, disclosing
itself in passive rather than in active ways. Wishing to be above all a
constitutional President, he quickly saw that an interregnum must be
philosophically accepted during which the Permanent Constitution would
be worked out and the various parties forced to a general agreement; and
thanks to this decision the year which has now elapsed since Yuan
Shih-kai's death has been almost entirely eventless, with the exception
of the crisis which arose over the war-issue, a matter which is fully
discussed elsewhere.

Meanwhile, in the closing months of 1916, the position was not a little
singular. Two great political parties had arisen through the
Revolution--the Kuo Ming Tang or Nationalists, who included all the
Radical elements, and the Chinputang or Progressives, whose adherents
were mainly men of the older official classes, and therefore
conservative. The Yunnan movement, which had led to the overthrow of
Yuan Shih-kai, had been inspired and very largely direc