I, the President, who desire to comply with the will of the populace and to consolidate the foundation of the nation, grant the request of the Tuchuns and the people.  It is hereby ordered that the Senate and the House of Representatives be dissolved, and that another election be held immediately.  Thus a Constitutional Government can be maintained.  It must be pointed out that the object for the reorganization of Parliament is to hasten the making of the Constitution, and not to abolish the Legislative Organ of the Republic.  I hope all the citizens of the Republic will understand my motives.

A great agitation and much public uneasiness followed the publication of this document; and the parliamentarians, who had already been leaving Peking in small numbers, now evacuated the capital en masse for the South.  The reasonable and wholly logical attitude of the Constitutionalists is well-exhibited in the last Memorandum they submitted to the President some days prior to his decision to issue the Mandate above-quoted; and a perusal of this document will show what may be expected in the future.  It will be noted that the revolting Military Governors are boldly termed rebels and that the constitutional view of everything they may contrive as from the 13th June, 1917, is that it will be bereft of all legality and simply mark a fresh interregnum.  Furthermore, it is important to note that the situation is brought back by the Mandate of the 13th June to where it was on the 6th June, 1916, with the death of Yuan Shih-kai, and that a period of civil commotion seems inevitable.

MEMORANDUM

To the President:  Our previous memorandum to Your Excellency must have received your attention.  We now beg further to inform you that the rebels are now practically in an embarrassing predicament on account of internal differences, the warning of the friendly Powers, and the protest of the Southwestern provinces.  Their position is becoming daily more and more untenable.  If Your Excellency strongly holds out for another ten days or so, their movement will collapse.

Some one, however, has the impudence to suggest that with the entry of Chang Hsun’s troops into the Capital, and delay in the settlement of the question will mean woe and disaster.  But to us, there need be no such fear.  As the troops in the Capital have no mind to oppose the rebels, Tsao Kun and his troops alone will be adequate for their purposes in the Capital.  But now the rebels troops have been halting in the neighbourhood of the Capital for the last ten days.  This shows that they dare not open hostilities against the Government, which step will certainly bring about foreign intervention and incur the strong opposition of the Southwestern provinces.  Having refused to participate in the rebellion at the invitation of Ni Shih-chung and Chang Tso-lin, Chang Hsun will certainly not do what Tsao Kun has not dared to do.  But the rebels have secret agents in the Capital to circulate rumours to frighten the public and we hope that the President will remain calm and unperturbed, lest it will give an opportunity for the rebel agents to practise their evil tricks.