ection in China,
so _planned as to include every arsenal north of the Yangtsze_ had
arrived at the psychological moment in Peking and was now deeply engaged
through Japanese field-officers in the employ of the Chinese Government,
in pulling every string and in trying to commit the leaders of this
unedifying plot in such a way as to make them puppets of Japan. The
Japanese press, seizing on the American Note of the 5th June as an
excuse, had been belabouring the United States for some days for its
"interference" in Chinese affairs, and also for having ignored Japan's
"special position" in China, which according to these publicists
demanded that no Power take any action in the Far East, or give any
advice, without first consulting Japan. That a stern correction will
have to be offered to this presumption as soon as the development of the
war permits it is certain. But not only Japanese military officers and
journalists were endlessly busy: so-called Japanese advisers to the
Chinese Government had done their utmost to assist the confusion. Thus
Dr. Ariga, the Constitutional expert, when called in at the last moment
for advice by President Li Yuan-hung had flatly contradicted Dr.
Morrison, who with an Englishman's love of justice and constitutionalism
had insisted that there was only one thing for the President to do--to
be bound by legality to the last no matter what it might cost him. Dr.
Ariga had falsely stated that the issue was a question of expediency,
thus deliberately assisting the forces of disruption. This is perhaps
only what was to be expected of a man who had advised Yuan Shih-kai to
make himself Emperor--knowing full well that he could never succeed and
that indeed the whole enterprise from the point of view of Japan was an
elaborate trap.

The provincial response to the action taken on the 13th June became what
every one had expected: the South-western group of provinces, with their
military headquarters at Canton, began openly concerting measures to
resist not the authority of the President, who was recognized as a just
man surrounded by evil-minded persons who never hesitated to betray him,
but to destroy the usurping generals and the corrupt camarilla behind
them; whilst the Yangtsze provinces, with their headquarters at Nanking,
which had hitherto been pledged to "neutrality," began secretly
exchanging views with the genuinely Republican South. The group of
Tientsin generals and "politicals," confused by