New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-07-05
BY ADACHI KINNOSUKE

by ADACHI MINUS L hE
Late at night on June Ii Yuan
hung, now president-in-hiding Of the
fallen Chinese republic, was on the
point of throwing up the job OF his
own volition. He had made up his
mind to resign. This is history newly
told.
He wrote out the telegram TO the
provisional chiefs and military gov
errors announcing his resignation. He
did not resign the office, however,
largely beo1use the leaders Of the
Southern Republican party. who were
still left in Picking at the time. urged
him strongly against any such notion.
That, of course, was e natural thing
for the Republican leaders to do.
Everybody understood how and why
they did it; they wished to remain in
power as long as possible; they still
Rugged happy dream of seeing some
thing turn up to save them from the
mouth Of the tiger"
There was another thing which
stopped Ii Yuan-hung from carrying
out his determination of resigning.
North China Party Urged Delay
1t came from the leaders Of the
North China party-the conservative,
militant faction, the enemies Of the
Republicans, the party whose leaders
were the military governors. mostly,
the very men who did their best in
bringing about the present political
crisis st Peking and who actually had
set up a provisional government al
Tien-tsin. These military conservatives
urged him to reconsider and not be
too hasty in throwing up the office. If
China needed a man of calmness, dig
nifty and judgment, they told him, now
was the time; it was certainly no time
for true son Of China to desert her.
There was a puzzle; nobody seemed
even to pretend to understand it,. Why
did the Northern faction wish Presi-
dent Ii to stay in the Office? The only
answer seemed to be that in China one
can expect anything. The Osaka
Mainichi" reported il as a great Picking
conundrum on June 5.
All this is no longer puzzle. Chang
Hsun and his fellow magieians have
pulled off the mask. The Tien-tsin
Provisional Government was a brief
bluff, behind which they nursed the
ambitious scheme of the restoration
of the Manchu dynasty. And they are
remarkable company, the gentlemen
who pulled the wires behind the bluff
and are pulling the strings now behind
the boy Emperor.
Chang Hsun Not the Big Figure
General Chang Hsun has been played
up of late as the big figure of the pres
ent coup d'etat. Wrong. True, he
marched right into the centre Of the
stage and did things. But he is little
more than a clumsy paw that beat
down the fence, cleared the plot and
put up the framework. Before the
American and European public he has
been painted in pretty rough colors, a
pig-tailed modern cross between Attila
and a gorilla Wrong again.
General Lu Yung-ting, Inspector
General Of the Provinces of kuang-
tung and Kuangsi, and who is apt to
figure large on the front pages of
newspapers before long, gave us a
thumb-nail sketch of the formidable
Chang Hsun which is the most recent
as we'll as the most intimate. The in
spector general was speaking at a
banquet given in his honor at Canton.
when his tongue, famous for its wonted
grim. soldierly silence, was loosened
and warmed by sparkling wine"
when | passed Hsuchow a town
on the Tientsin-Pukow railroad. where
General Chang Hsun holds forth as
the military governor OF Anhui.,' said
General Lu, 81 paid a call on General
Chang Hsung. Tuchun of Anhui, who
upon seeing me at once hailed me as
elder brother" | was much pleased
with this kind of reception. His rough
and ready manner may shock the sense
of propriety of the literati and civil
ians. But he is shorn of all preten-
sions and, as he frankly told me, he
has no patience with those who stand
upon too much ceremony. His frank
ness. bravery and simplicity of mind