The first illuminating point, as we have already said, to leap up and lock attention to the exclusion of everything else in this memorandum, is that the chief difficulty which perplexes Dr. Goodnow is not the consolidation of a new government which had been recognized by all the Treaty Powers only two years previously but the question of succession to the supreme office in the land, a point which had already been fully provided for in the one chapter of the Permanent Constitution which had been legally passed prior to the Coup d’etat of the 4th November, 1913.  But Yuan Shih-kai’s first care after that coup d’etat had been to promulgate with the assistance of Dr. Goodnow and others, a bogus Law, resting on no other sanction than his personal volition, with an elaborate flummery about three candidates whose names were to be deposited in the gold box in the Stone House in the gardens of the Palace.  Therefore since the provisional nature of this prestidigitation had always been clear, the learned doctor’s only solution is to recommend the overthrow of the government; the restoration of the Empire under the name of Constitutional Monarchy; and, by means of a fresh plot to do in China what all Europe has long been on the point of abandoning, namely, to substitute Family rule for National rule.

Now had these suggestions been gravely made in any country but China by a person officially employed it is difficult to know what would have happened.  Even in China had an Englishman published or caused to be published—­especially after the repeated statements Yuan Shih-kai had given out that any attempt to force the sceptre on him would cause him to leave the country and end his days abroad [Footnote:  The most widely-quoted statement on this subject is the remarkable interview, published in the first week of July, 1915, throughout the metropolitan press, between President Yuan Shih-kai and General Feng Kuo-chang, commanding the forces on the lower Yangtsze.  This statement was telegraphed by foreign correspondents all over the world.  Referring to the many rumours afloat that titles of nobility would be revived as a precursor to the monarchy the President declared that even if he seized the Throne that would not increase his powers, whilst as for transmitting the Imperial Yellow to his sons none were fitted for that honour which would mean the collapse of any new dynasty.  Here General Feng Kuo-chang interrupted with the remark that the people of South China would not oppose such a change ultimately, though they thought it was too early to talk about it just now.  Thereupon the president’s features became stern and he declared in a heightened voice:  “You and others seem still to believe that I harbour secret ambitions.  I affirm positively that when I sent my sons to study in England, I privately ordered the purchase of a small estate there as a possible home.  If the people of China insist upon my accepting the sceptre I shall leave this country and spend the remaining