Reply of the Chinese Government to the Ultimatum of the Japanese Government, delivered to the Japanese Minister by the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the 8th of May, 1915,

On the 7th of this month, at three o’clock P. M. the Chinese Government received an Ultimatum from the Japanese Government together with an Explanatory Note of seven articles.  The Ultimatum concluded with the hope that the Chinese Government by six o’clock P. M. on the 9th of May will give a satisfactory reply, and it is hereby declared that if no satisfactory reply is received before or at the specified time, the Japanese Government will take steps she may deem necessary.

The Chinese Government with a view to preserving the peace of the Far East hereby accepts, with the exception of those five articles of Group V postponed for later negotiation, all the articles of Group I, II, III, and IV and the exchange of notes in connection with Fukien Province in Group V as contained in the revised proposals presented on the 26th of April, and in accordance with the Explanatory Note of seven articles accompanying the Ultimatum of the Japanese Government with the hope that thereby all the outstanding questions are settled, so that the cordial relationship between the two countries may be further consolidated.  The Japanese Minister is hereby requested to appoint a day to call at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to make the literary improvement of the text and sign the Agreement as soon as possible.

Thus ended one of the most extraordinary diplomatic negotiations ever undertaken in Peking.

CHAPTER VII

THE ORIGIN OF THE TWENTY-ONE DEMANDS

The key to this remarkable business was supplied by a cover sent anonymously to the writer during the course of these negotiations with no indication as to its origin.  The documents which this envelope contained are so interesting that they merit attention at the hands of all students of history, explaining as they do the psychology of the Demands as well as throwing much light on the manner in which the world-war has been viewed in Japan.

The first document is purely introductory, but is none the less interesting.  It is a fragment, or rather a precis of the momentous conversation which took place between Yuan Shih-kai and the Japanese Minister when the latter personally served the Demands on the Chief Executive and took the opportunity to use language unprecedented even in the diplomatic history of Peking.

The precis begins in a curious way.  After saying that “the Japanese Minister tried to influence President Yuan Shih-kai with the following words,” several long lines of asterisks suggest that after reflection the unknown chronicler had decided, for political reasons of the highest importance, to allow others to guess how the “conversation” opened.  From the context it seems absolutely clear that the excised words have to deal with the