Accordingly Japanese diplomacy was forced to re-state and re-group the whole corpus of the demands.  On the 26th April, acting under direct instructions from Tokio, the Japanese Minister to Peking presented a revised list for renewed consideration, the demands being expanded to twenty-four articles (in place of the original twenty-one largely because discussion had shown the necessity of breaking up into smaller units some of the original articles).  Most significant, however, is the fact that Group V, (which in its original form was a more vicious assault on Chinese sovereignty than the Austrian Ultimatum to Serbia of June, 1914) was so remodelled as to convey a very different meaning, the group heading disappearing entirely and an innocent-looking exchange of notes being asked for.  It is necessary to recall that, when taxed with making Demands which were entirely in conflict with the spirit of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, the Japanese Government through its ambassadors abroad had categorically denied that they had ever laid any such Demands on the Chinese Government.  It was claimed that there had never been twenty-one Demands, as the Chinese alleged, but only fourteen, the seven items of Group V being desiderata which it was in the interests of china to endorse but which Japan had no intention of forcing upon her.  The writer, being acquainted from first to last with everything that took place in Peking from the 18th January to the filing of the Japanese ultimatum of the 7th May, has no hesitation in stigmatising this statement as false.  The whole aim and object of these negotiations was to force through Group V. Japan would have gladly postponed sine die the discussion of all the other Groups had China assented to provisions which would have made her independence a thing of the past.  Every Chinese knew that, in the main, Group V was simply a repetition of the measures undertaken in Korea after the Russo-Japanese war of 1905 as a forerunner to annexation; and although obviously in the case of China no such rapid surgery could be practised, the endorsement of these measures would have meant a virtual Japanese Protectorate.  Even a cursory study of the text that follows will confirm in every particular these capital contentions: 

JAPAN’S REVISED DEMANDS

Japan’s Revised Demands on China, twenty-four in all, presented April 26, 1915.

Note on original text: 

[The revised list of articles is a Chinese translation of the Japanese text.  It is hereby declared that when a final decision is reached, there shall be a revision of the wording of the text.]

GROUP I

The Japanese Government and the Chinese Government, being desirous of maintaining the general peace in Eastern Asia and further strengthening the friendly relations and good neighbourhood existing between the two nations, agree to the following articles:—­