Yuan Shih-kai, the man, when he came out of retirement in 1911, was in many ways a wonderful Chinese: he was a fount of energy and of a physical sturdiness rare in a country whose governing classes have hitherto been recruited from attenuated men, pale from study and the lotus life. He had a certain task to which to put his hand, a huge task, indeed, since the reformation of four hundred millions was involved, yet one which was not beyond him if wisely advised. He was an ignorant man in certain matters, but he had had much political experience and apparently possessed a marvellous aptitude for learning. The people needed a leader to guide them through the great gateway of the West, to help them to acquire those jewels of wisdom and experience which are a common heritage. An almost Elizabethan eagerness rilled them, as if a New World they had never dreamed of had been suddenly discovered for them and lay open to their endeavours. China, hitherto derided as a decaying land, had been born anew; and in single massive gesture had proclaimed that she, too, would belong to the elect and be governed accordingly. What was the foreign response--the official response? In every transaction into which it was possible to import them, reaction and obscurantism were not only commonly employed but heartily recommended. Not one trace of genuine statesmanship, not one flash of altruism, was ever seen save the American flash in the pan of 1913, when President Wilson refused to allow American participation in the great Reorganization Loan because he held that the terms on which it was to be granted infringed upon China's sovereign rights. Otherwise there was nothing but a tacit endorsement of the very policy which has been tearing the entrails out of Europe--namely militarism. That was the fine fruit which was offered to a hopeful nation--something that would wither on the branch or poison the people as they plucked it. They were taught to believe that political instinct was the ability to misrepresent in a convincing way the actions and arguments of your opponents and to profit by their mistakes--not that it is a mighty impulse which can re-make nations. The Republic was declared by the actions of Western bureaucrats to be a Republic pour rire, not a serious thing; and by this false and cruel assumption they killed Yuan Shih-kai. If that epitaph is written on his political tombstone, it will be as full of blinding truth as is only possible with Last Things. CHAPTER XIV THE NEW REGIME,--FROM 1916 TO 1917