Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/128

 openly menaced. Accordingly, after a long and bitter struggle behind the scenes, President Li Yuan-hung was finally intimidated into promulgating a Mandate of Dissolution, although he had no constitutional right to do so; and as the capital was already under the control of the military, Parliament was forced to scatter.

No doubt it was the fact that the immediate sequel to this dissolution was a burlesque restoration of the Manchus, lasting eleven days, which confused the Northern military party. Had they been well-advised, they would have hastened the summoning of a new Parliament on the valid election law of 1913 and sought a compromise on the seven Articles. But finding the field absolutely free—after they had thrown down the Manchus again—and being fearful of the future, they summoned a packed and illegal National Council, under the so-called authority of the provisional Constitution; instructed this body to alter the election law, and then held a general election which sent to Peking two greatly-reduced, packed Houses in time to carry out the quinquennial Presidential election. Their official candidate, curiously enough, was probably the best man in China, Hsü Shih-chang, a former viceroy, who by training and natural inclination is sufficiently broad-minded