Sun Yat Sen
elected Provisional President, to the coup d'etat of 4th November,
1913, when Yuan Shih-kai, elected full President a few weeks
previously, after having acted as Chief Executive for twenty
months, boldly broke up Parliament and made himself de facto
Dictator of China, is a matter of extraordinary difficulty.
All through this important period of Chinese history one has the
impression that one is in dreamland and that fleeting emotions
take the place of more solid things. Plot and counter-plot follow
one another so rapidly that an accurate record of them all would
be as wearisome as the Book of Chronicles itself; whilst the
amazing web of financial intrigue which binds the whole together
is so complex--and at the same time so antithetical to the
political struggle--that the two stories seem to run counter to
one another, although they are as closely united as two assassins
pledged to carry through in common a dread adventure. A huge
agglomeration of people estimated to number four hundred millions,
being left without qualified leaders and told that the system of
government, which had been laid down by the Nanking Provisional
Constitution and endorsed by the Abdication Edicts, was a system
in which every man was as good as neighbour, swayed meaninglessly
to and fro, vainly seeking to regain the equilibrium which had
been so sensationally lost. A litigious spirit became so universal
that all authority was openly derided, crimes of every description
being so common as to force most respectable men to withdraw from
public affairs and leave a bare rump of desperadoes in power.
Pages:
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70