l tend rapidly to fade into complete oblivion.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] Although the events dealt with in Chapter XVI have brought China
face to face with a new crisis the force of the arguments used here is
in no wise weakened.

[22] Since this was written two Cabinet Ministers have been summarily
arrested.

CHAPTER XV

THE REPUBLIC IN COLLISION WITH REALITY: TWO TYPICAL INSTANCES OF
"FOREIGN AGGRESSION"

Such, then, were the internal conditions which the new administration
was called upon to face with the death of Yuan Shih-kai. With very
little money in the National Treasury and with the provinces unable or
unwilling to remit to the capital a single dollar, it was fortunate that
at least one public service, erected under foreign pressure, should be
brilliantly justifying its existence. The Salt Administration,
efficiently reorganized in the space of three years by the great Indian
authority, Sir Richard Dane, was now providing a monthly surplus of
nearly five million dollars; and it was this revenue which kept China
alive during a troubled transitional period when every one was declaring
that she must die. By husbanding this hard cash and mixing it liberally
with paper money, the Central Government has been able since June, 1916,
to meet its current obligations and to keep the general machinery from
breaking down.

But in a country such as China new dangers have to be constantly faced
and smoothed away--the interests of the outer world pressing on the
country and conflicting with the native interest at a myriad points. And
in order to illustrate and make clear the sort of daily exacerbation
which the nation must endure because of the vastness of its territory
and the octopus-hold of the foreigner we give two typical cases of
international trouble which have occurred since Yuan Shih-kai's death.
The first is the well-known Chengchiatun incident which occurred in
Manchuria in August, 1916: the second is the Lao-hsi-kai affair which
took place in Tientsin in November of the same year and created a storm
of rage against France throughout North China which at the moment of
writing has not yet abated.

The facts about the Chengchiatun incident are incredibly simple and
merit being properly told. Chengchiatun is a small Mongol-Manchurian
market-town lying some sixty miles west of the South Manchurian railway
by the ordinary cart-roads, though as the crow flies the distance is
much less. The country round about i