Coalition Cabinet, comprising Ministers of both the Peking and the Nanking Governments, those selected being men with a considerable knowledge of Western life and thought, as, for instance, Lu Cheng-hsiang, the Foreign Minister, who has lived many years in Europe and speaks French as well as English. A further advance took place on April 2d, when the Nanking Assembly agreed by a large majority to transfer the Provisional Government to Peking, which thus resumed its position as the capital of the country and the center of its Administration. Among the causes which contributed to the success of the revolution were the inability of the north to obtain loans from outside, and the pressure, both direct and indirect, exerted upon both parties by foreign Powers. Both of these causes were important, the latter especially so. The action of Russia with respect to Mongolia, and of Japan with regard to Manchuria, alarmed patriotic Chinese, led them to fear that foreign interference might not be confined to these territories, and to dread that the result would be the disintegration of the country. Under the Manchus they had seen the loss of Korea, the Liaotung, Formosa, and, in a sense, of Manchuria itself; they were apprehensive of German designs in Shantung, of Japanese in Fuhkien. The feeling that the country was in danger helped both sides to be of one mind. But the pressure from the outside was not all of this sinister sort; friendly representations from the genuinely well-disposed Powers did a good deal to bring the combatants to a mutual understanding. But throughout the revolution, as in the final result, the great outstanding, commanding figure was Yuan Shih-kai himself. Evidently a man of great gifts, he knew how and when to yield and how and when to be firm; the compromise which solved the situation--at all events, for the time--was mostly his work; statesman and patriot, he saved his country. And it will always redound to his credit that he can not be charged with faithlessness to the Manchus, for he did all that was possible for them, standing by them to the last. By retaining the "Emperor" as the priestly head of the nation, _pater patriae_, according to Chinese ideas, he has left something to the Manchus and at the same time contrived that the republican form of government shall bring as slight a shock to "immemorial China" as can be imagined.