Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/83

 the Northern military party to agree even to the restoration of the provisional Constitution and the re-convocation of the dissolved Parliament of 1913; and, therefore, under the surface, when Parliament reassembled it was simply the situation of 1913 over again, minus Yuan Shih-kai. When the war-issue came up early in 1917, owing to America's invitation to China to join in the battle against submarine piracy, the question of the permanent Constitution had already nearly wrecked Parliament, the Southern majority not being sufficient to force through the vital clauses. Consequently, just as Yuan Shih-kai had used the signature of the great Reorganization Loan to break the power of Parliament in 1913, so in 1917 the Northern Party began to use the question of a declaration of war against Germany as an intimidation against the majority party, being greatly fortified by the attitude of the Allied legations, who so greatly desired that step to be taken that everything else was held immaterial.

Thereupon began an extraordinary struggle. President Li Yuan-hung seemed to have it in his hands not only to settle the constitutional question by a display of firmness but to define once and for all China's foreign policy. But, being without competent help and without