the contrary, make use of them to the fullest extent where they are in existence; they do not wish, however, the lines to be constructed with foreign money, holding that such investments of capital from without might be regarded as setting up liens on their lands in favor of outside Powers—­how far they can do without outside capital is another matter.  Then the whole question of railway-building involved the old quarrel between the provinces and the central government—­which is another way of saying that the provinces did not see why all the spoils should go to Peking.

A month after the rebellion in Szechuan had broken out, the great revolution began, and met with the most astonishing success from the very outset.  Within a few weeks practically the whole of southern China was in the hands of the revolutionaries, and the Throne in hot panic summoned Yuan Shih-kai from his retirement to its assistance; after some hesitation and delay he came—­but too late to save the dynasty and the Manchus, though there is no shadow of doubt that he did his best and tried his utmost to save them.  With Wuchang, Hankau, and Hanyang—­the three form the metropolis, as it may be termed, of mid-China—­in the possession of the revolutionaries, and other great centers overtly disaffected or disloyal, the Regent opened the session of the national assembly, and it forthwith proceeded to assert itself and make imperious demands with which the Throne was compelled to comply—­this was within a fortnight after the attack on Wuchang that had begun the revolution.  On November 1st the Throne appointed Yuan Shih-kai Prime Minister, and a week later the national assembly confirmed him in the office; he arrived in Peking on the thirteenth of the month, was received in semi-regal state, and immediately instituted such measures as were possible for the security of the dynasty and the pacification of the country.  But ten days before he reached Peking the Throne had been forced to issue an edict assenting to the principles which the national assembly had set forth in nineteen articles as forming the basis of the Constitution; these articles, while preserving the dynasty and keeping sacrosanct the person of the Emperor, made the monarchy subject to the Constitution and the Government to Parliament, with a responsible Cabinet presided over by a Prime Minister, and gave Parliament full control of the budget.

Here, then, was the triumph of the constitutional cause, and Yuan Shih-kai and most of the moderate progressive Chinese would have been well satisfied with it if it had contented the revolutionaries of the south.  But from the beginning the southerners had made it plain that they were determined to bring about the abdication of the dynasty, the complete overthrow of the Manchus, and the establishment of a republican form of government, nor would they lay down their arms on any other terms.  In a short time Yuan Shih-kai saw that the revolutionaries were powerful enough to compel consideration and at least