the revolutionary party raised its banner and gathered its supporters from every part of the country.  As soon as the revolt started at Wuchang the troops all over the country joined in the movement to overthrow the Manchu Dynasty.  The members of the Imperial Senate, most of whom were members of the constitutional party, could not help showing their sympathy with the revolutionists.  At last the imperial household issued a proclamation containing Nineteen Articles—­a veritable magna charta—­but it was too late.  The constitutional government which was about to be formed was thus laid aside.  What the imperial family did was the mere organization of an advisory council.  A famous foreign scholar aptly remarked:  “A false constitutional government will eventually result in a true revolution.”  In trying to deceive the people by means of a false constitutional government the imperial house encompassed its own destruction.  Once His Excellency Yuan Shih-kai stated in a memorial to the throne that there were only two alternatives:  to give the people a constitutional government or to have them revolt.  What happened afterwards is a matter of common knowledge.  Therefore I say that the government which the imperial family attempted to form was not a constitutional government.

Mr. Ko:  Thank you for your discussion of the attempt of the imperial household to establish a constitutional government; but how about the Provisional Constitution, the parliament and the cabinet in the first and second years of the Republic?  The parliament was then so powerful that the government was absolutely at its mercy, thereby disturbing the peaceful condition of the country.  The people have tasted much of the bitterness of constitutional government.  Should you mention the name of constitutional government again they would be thoroughly frightened.  Is that true?

Mr. Hu:  During the first and second years of the Republic, in my many conversations with the members of the Kuo Ming Tang, I said that the republic could not form an efficient method of control, and that there would be an over centration of power through the adoption of monarchical methods of ruling, knowing as well as I did the standards of our people.  When the members of the Kuo Ming Tang came to draw up the Provisional Constitution they purposely took precisely the opposite course of action and ignored my suggestion.  It may, however, be mentioned that the Provisional Constitution made in Nanking was not so bad, but after the government was removed to Peking, the Kuo Ming Tang people tied the hand and foot of the government by means of the Cabinet System and other restrictions with the intention of weakening the power of the central administration in order that they might be able to start another revolution.  From the dissolution of the Nanking government to the time of the second revolution they had this one object in view, namely to weaken the power of the central