Page:The problem of China - Russell 1922.pdf/142

140Rh some prospect of their succeeding in establishing a stable democratic government. Yuan was dead, and his successor in the Presidency, Li Yuan Hung, was a genuine constitutionalist. He reassembled the Parliament which Yuan had dismissed, and the work of drafting a permanent constitution was resumed. The President was opposed to severing diplomatic relations, and, of course, still more to declaring war. The Prime Minister, Tuan Chih-jui, a militarist, was strongly in favour of war. He and his Cabinet persuaded a considerable majority of both Houses of the Chinese Parliament to side with them on the question of severing diplomatic relations, and the President, as in duty bound, gave way on this issue.

On the issue of declaring war, however, public opinion was different. It was President Wilson's summons to the neutrals to follow him in breaking off diplomatic relations that had given force to the earlier campaign; but on June 5th the American Minister, acting on instructions, presented a Note to the Chinese Government urging that the preservation of national unity was more important than entry into the war, and suggesting the desirability of preserving peace for the present. What had happened in the meantime was that the war issue, which might never have become acute but for President's Wilson's action, had been used by the Japanese to revive the conflict between North and South, and to instigate the Chinese militarists to unconstitutional action. Sun Yat Sen and most of the Southern politicians were opposed to the declaration of war; Sun's reasons were made known in an open letter to Mr. Lloyd George on March 7th. They were thoroughly sound.