The rebels went on with their work in calling up troops from Premier Wu Hon Man at Canton, and in equipping aeroplanes, run by Americanized Chinese, for a possible air attack on Peking, if the peace conference should break up in failure, and Hankau could be won back. The missionaries agreed to flee to the Methodist compound which adjoined the legation quarter in the Tartar city of Peking, on a signal being given by rocket. The foreigners in the northern provinces were dubious that a republican government could be established, but it must be remembered that many of these foreigners were more surprised than the rest of the world that the reformers ever shouldered arms for reform and declared for a republic on October 10, 1911. The foreigners of the northern provinces were accordingly at first largely in sympathy with the retention of the Manchu, under a limited monarchy system, and the election of Yuan as premier. Many of the foreigners of Peking and Tientsin tried to impose their views upon the foreigners of Shanghai and Hongkong, who naturally knew more about the reform and republican movement in China, for the initial reformers of China all came from Canton, Penang, Manila and Shanghai, where they were influenced by British Hongkong, Singapore and America. The income of the imperial authority had been levied mainly on the southern provinces, which had least representation on the Peking Boards (Pus) since the coup d’état of 1898. Taxation again without representation! The doubt in the minds of the reformers was that if the Manchu was retained, he might revert to his old faults of by turns oppressing China, and by turns looting it, for certain foreign concessionaires. True, said some, peace could be fixed up now, and matters fought out again, if faith was not kept. But, said others, by that time certain foreigners will have given Yuan Shih Kai an army of forty divisions with a fortified base at Peking in touch with the Russian railway, a navy of battleships, 2,500 miles of new flanking railways down into the south, and a full exchequer box, while the new parliaments may be without a Cromwell, a Pym, a Hampden, a Jefferson, a Franklin, a Lincoln. It was a great question, the largest any nation has ever handled, and the one answer was: “Well, then, develop your Cromwells, Pyms, Hampdens, Jeffersons, Franklins, Lincolns, out of such timber as you have in Sun, Wu, Kang, Li, etc., and let us have peace.”