“Now it is proposed to take the existence of this great nation of five thousand years and four hundred million people in order to serve the interests of politicians in their party struggles.  We are now to be bound to foreign nations, without freedom to act for ourselves and running great risks of national destruction.  Can you gentlemen bear to see this come to pass?  China has severed relations with Germany but the decision for war has not yet been reached.  The whole country is telegraphing opposition to the Government’s policy and wants to know whether Germany will not in the future take revenge on account of our rupture with her; and if we are not secured against this eventuality, what are the preparations to meet with a contingency?  The Government must not stake the fate of the nation as if it be a child’s toy, and the people must not be cast into the whirlpool of slaughter.  The people are the backbone of a country, and if the people are all opposed to war on Germany, the Government—­in spite of the support of Parliament—­must call a great citizens’ convention to decide the question.  We must persist in our neutrality.  You gentlemen are patriotic sons of this country and must know that the existence of China as a nation depends upon what she does now in this matter.  In tears, I appeal to you.  Kang yu-wei.”

March and April were consumed in this fruitless discussion in which everybody participated.  The Premier, General Tuan Chi-jui, in view of the alleged provincial opposition, now summoned to Peking a Conference of Provincial Military Governors to endorse his policy, but this action although crowned with success so far as the army chiefs were concerned—­the conference voting solidly for war—­was responsible for greatly alarming Parliament which saw in this procedure a new attempt to undermine its power and control the country by extra-legal means.  Furthermore, publication in the Metropolitan press of what the Japanese were doing behind the scenes created a fear that extraordinary intrigues were being indulged in with the object of securing by means of secret diplomacy certain guarantees of a personal nature.  Apart from being associated with the semi-official negotiations of the Entente Powers in Peking, Japan was carrying on a second set of negotiations partly by means of a confidential agent named Kameio Nishihara dispatched from Tokio specially for that purpose by Count Terauchi, the Japanese Premier, a procedure which led to the circulation of highly sensational stories regarding China’s future commitments.  When the Premier, General Tuan Chi-jui, had made his statement to Parliament on the 10th March, regarding the necessity of an immediate rupture with Germany, he had implied that China had already received assurances from the Allies that there would be a postponement of the Boxer Indemnities for a term of years, an immediate increase in the Customs Tariff, and a modification of the Peace Protocol of