9.  The Europe and Asia Trading Company shall have the power to dispose of the public properties in the places occupied by the volunteer force.

10.  The Europe and Asia Trading Company shall have the first preference for working the mines in places occupied and protected by the volunteer force.

And here ends this extraordinary collection of papers.  Is fiction mixed with fact—­are these only “trial” drafts, or are they real documents signed, sealed, and delivered?  The point seems unimportant.  The thing of importance is the undoubted fact that assembled and treated in the way we have treated them they present a complete and arresting picture of the aims and ambitions of the ordinary Japanese; of their desire to push home the attack to the last gasp and so to secure the infeodation of China.

CHAPTER VIII

THE MONARCHIST PLOT

THE PAMPHLET OF YANG TU

A shiver of impotent rage passed over the country when the nature and acceptance of the Japanese Ultimatum became generally known.  The Chinese, always an emotional people responding with quasi-feminine volubility to oppressive acts, cried aloud at the ignominy of the diplomacy which had so cruelly crucified them.  One and all declared that the day of shame which had been so harshly imposed upon them would never be forgotten and that Japan would indeed pay bitterly for her policy of extortion.

Two movements were started at once:  one to raise a National Salvation Fund to be applied towards strengthening the nation in any way the government might decide; the other, to boycott all Japanese articles of commerce.  Both soon attained formidable proportions.  The nation became deeply and fervently interested in the double-idea; and had Yuan Shih-kai possessed true political vision there is little doubt that by responding to this national call he might have ultimately been borne to the highest pinnacles of his ambitions without effort on his part.  His oldest enemies now openly declared that henceforth he had only to work honourably and whole-heartedly in the nation’s interest to find them supporting him, and to have every black mark set against his name wiped out.

In these circumstances what did he do?  His actions form one of the most incredible and, let it be said, contemptible chapters of contemporary history.

In dealing with the origins of the Twenty-one Demands we have already discussed the hints the Japan Representative had officially made when presenting his now famous Memorandum.  Briefly Yuan Shih-kai had been told in so many words that since he was already autocrat of all the Chinese, he had only to endorse the principle of Japanese guidance in his administration to find that his Throne would be as good as publicly and solidly established.  Being saturated with the doleful diplomacy of Korea, and seeing in these proposals