were many arrests and suicides in the capital.  Though by a mandate issued on the 23rd February, the enthronement ceremony was indefinitely postponed, that move came too late.  The whole country was plainly trembling on the edge of a huge outbreak when, less than four weeks later, Yuan Shih-kai reluctantly and publicly admitted that the game was up.  It is understood that a fateful interview he had with the British Minister greatly influenced him, though the formal declaration of independence of Kwangsi on the 16th March, whither the scholar Liang Ch’i-chao had gone, was also a powerful argument.  On the 22nd March the Emperor-elect issued the mandate categorically cancelling the entire monarchy scheme, it being declared that he would now form a Responsible Cabinet.  Until that date the Government Gazette had actually perpetrated the folly of publishing side by side Imperial Edicts and Presidential Mandates—­the first for Chinese eyes, the second for foreign consumption.  Never before even in China had such a farce been seen.  A rapid perusal of the Mandate of Cancellation will show how lamely and poorly the retreat is made: 

    DECREE CANCELLING THE EMPIRE (22ND MARCH)

After the establishment of the Min Kuo (i.e. the Republic), disturbances rapidly followed one another; and a man of little virtue like me was called to take up the vast burden of the State.  Fearing that disaster might befall us any day, all those who had the welfare of the country at heart advocated the reinstitution of the monarchical system of government to the end that a stop be put to all strife for power and a regime of peace be inaugurated.  Suggestions in this sense have unceasingly been made to me since the days of Kuei Chou (the year of the first Revolution, 1911) and each time a sharp rebuke has been administered to the one making the suggestion.  But the situation last year was indeed so different from the circumstances of preceding years that it was impossible to prevent the spread of such ideas.

It was said that China could never hope to continue as a nation unless the constitutional monarchical form of state were adopted; and if quarrels like those occurring in Mexico and Portugal were to take place in China, we would soon share the fate of Annam and Burmah.  A large number of people then advocated the restoration of a monarchy and advanced arguments which were reasonable.  In this proposal all the military and civil officials, scholars and people concurred; and prayers were addressed to me in most earnest tone by telegram and in petitions.  Owing to the position I was at the time holding, which laid on me the duty of maintaining the then existing situation, I repeatedly made declarations resisting the adoption of the advice; but the people did not seem to realize my embarrassment.  And so it was decided by the acting Li Fa Yuan (i.e. the Senate) that the question of Kuo-ti (form of State)