Determined to having nothing whatever to do, save in the last
resort, with anything that savours of Radicalism, and inclining
naturally towards ideals which have long been abandoned in the
workaday world, diplomacy is the instinctive lover of obscurantism
and the furtive enemy of progress. Distrusting all those generous
movements which spring from the popular desire to benefit by
change, it follows from this that the diplomatic brotherhood
inclines towards those truly detestable things--secret compacts.
In the present instance, having been bitterly disappointed by the
complete collapse of the strong man theory, it was only natural
that consolation should be sought by casting doubt on the future.
Never have sensible men been so absurd. The life-story of Yuan
Shih-kai, and the part European and Japanese diplomacy played in
that story, form a chapter which should be taught as a warning to
all who enter politics as a career, since there is exhibited in
this history a complete compendium of all the more vicious traits
of Byzantinism.
The first acts of President Li Yuan-hung rapidly restored
confidence and advertised to the keen-eyed that the end of the
long drawn-out Revolution had come. Calling before him all the
generals in the capital, he told them with sincerity and
simplicity that their country's fortunes rested in their hands;
and he asked them to take such steps as would be in the nature of
a permanent insurance against foreign interference in the affairs
of the Republic.
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