That the Chinese
experiment was looked upon in England more with amusement than
with concern irritated the Japanese--more particularly as the
British Foreign Office was issuing in the form of White Papers
documents covering Yuan Shih-kai's public declarations as if they
were contributions to contemporary history. Thus in the preceding
year (1913) under the nomenclature of "affairs in China" the text
of a dementi regarding the President of China's Imperial
aspirations had been published,--a document which Japanese had
classified as a studied lie, and as an act of presumption because
its wording showed that its author intended to keep his back
turned on Japan. The Dictator had declared:--
... "From my student days, I, Yuan Shih-kai, have admired the
example of the Emperors Yao and Shun, who treated the empire as a
public trust, and considered that the record of a dynasty in
history for good or ill is inseparably bound up with the public
spirit or self-seeking by which it has been animated. On attaining
middle age I grew more familiar with foreign affairs, was struck
by the admirable republican system in France and America, and felt
that they were a true embodiment of the democratic precepts of the
ancients. When last year the patriotic crusade started in Wuchang
its echoes went forth into all the provinces, with the result that
this ancient nation with its 2,000 years of despotism adopted with
one bound the republican system of government.
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