Safe in the knowledge that possession is nine points of the law, Yuan Shih-kai now treated with derision the resolutions which Parliament passed that the transaction was illegal and the loan agreement null and void.  Being openly backed by the agents of the Foreign Powers, he immediately received large cash advances which enabled him to extend his power in so many directions that further argument with him seemed useless.  It is necessary to record that the Parliamentary leaders had almost gone down on their knees to certain of the foreign Ministers in Peking in a vain attempt to persuade them to delay—­as they could very well have done—­the signature of this vital Agreement for forty-eight hours so that it could be formally passed by the National Assembly, and thus save the vital portion of the sovereignty of the country from passing under the heel of one man.  But Peking diplomacy is a perverse and disagreeable thing; and the Foreign Ministers of those days, although accredited to a government which while it had not then been formally recognized as a Republic by any Power save the United States, was bound to be so very shortly, were determined to be reactionary and were at heart delighted to find things running back normally to absolutism.

[Footnote:  The United States accorded formal recognition to the Republic on the election of the Speakers of the two Houses of Parliament:  the other Treaty Powers delayed recognition until Yuan Shih-kai had been elected full President in October.  It has been very generally held that the long delay in foreign recognition of the Republic contributed greatly to its internal troubles by making every one doubt the reality of the Nanking transaction.  Most important, however, is the historical fact that a group of Powers numbering the two great leaders of democracy in Europe—­ England and France—­did everything they could in Peking to enthrone Yuan Shih-kai as dictator.]

High finance had at last got hold of everything it required from China and was in no mood to relax the monopoly of the salt administration which the Loan Agreement conferred.  Nor must be the fact be lost sight of that of the nominal amount of 25,000,000 pounds which had been borrowed, fully half consisted of repayments to foreign Banks and never left Europe.  According to the schedules attached to the Agreement, Annex A, comprising the Boxer arrears and bank advances, absorbed 4,317,778 pounds:  Annex B, being so-called provincial loans, absorbed a further 2,870,000 pounds:  Annex C, being liabilities shortly maturing, amounted to 3,592,263 pounds:  Annex D, for disbandment of troops, amounted to 3,000,000 pounds:  Annex C, to cover current administrative expenses totalled 5,500,000 pounds:  whilst Annex E which covered the reorganization of the Salt Administration, absorbed the last 2,000,000 pounds.  The bank profits on this loan alone amounted to 1 1/4 million pounds; whilst Yuan Shih-kai himself was placed in possession