In this connection may be related the diplomatic comedy enacted at Shanghai in October, in which the newly formed Anglo-Japanese alliance played a part. According to the just wishes of the Chinese authorities, Great Britain proposed on July 31 to Japan, Germany, and France to withdraw the troops the four powers had been stationing at Shanghai, where peace had been restored. Japan and France cheerfully assented, on the condition, however, that all the parties should agree. Germany showed an inexplicable dilatoriness in giving a definite answer, proposing that the four powers should first come to an agreement as to the date of a joint evacuation. Great Britain fixed November 1, to which France agreed. Japan, however, delayed, as she descried a secret movement being made by one of the parties. Finally, Japan heard on October 6, and Great Britain on the 8th, that Germany had secured from the Chinese government a pledge that it would give no additional rights to any power in the Yang-tse basin, the British influence over which had always embarrassed the German policy in China. The stroke dealt by Germany could have been aimed at no other power but Great Britain. The former notified the latter that her intention was to prevent any power from taking the present opportunity to come to a secret agreement of an exclusive nature with China--a possibility altogether incompatible with the terms of the alliance so recently framed. At the same time, the Chinese government pretended that it had made no special pledge to Germany. Great Britain, now fully advised by Japan of the nature of the case, declared that it would be unnecessary and undesirable to bind only a few powers to guarantee the integrity of a portion of the Chinese empire, and that to such an agreement, if any, she would not consider herself in any way bound. She also expressed to Prince Ching her resentment of his duplicity. In the meantime, the Viceroy Chang Chih-tung, from whom the German consul had sought a similar pledge to one that had been given by the prince, flatly refused the demand. Germany ended the affair with a clever but unconvincing explanation to Great Britain. Seeing that the sky was clear, Japan evacuated Shanghai, alone and boldly, on November 22. The other powers soon followed.