Constitution, admittance had been absolutely refused to Yuan Shih-kai's
delegates who had been sent to urge a modification of the
decentralization which had been such a characteristic of the Nanking
Instrument. Such details as transpired showed that the principle of
absolute money-control was not only to be the dominant note in the
Permanent Constitution, but that a new and startling innovation was
being included to secure that a _de facto_ Dictatorship should be
rendered impossible. Briefly, it was proposed that when Parliament was
not actually in session there should be left in Peking a special
Parliamentary Committee, charged with supervising and controlling the
Executive, and checking any usurpation of power.

This was enough for Yuan Shih-kai: he felt that he was not only an
object of general suspicion but that he was being treated with contempt.
He determined to finish with it all. He was as yet, however, only
provisional President and it was necessary to show cunning. Once more he
set to work in a characteristic way. By a liberal use of money
Parliament was induced to pass in advance of the main body of articles
the Chapter of the Constitution dealing with the election and term of
office of the President. When that had been done the two Chambers
sitting as an Electoral College, after the model of the French
Parliament, being partly bribed and partly terrorised by a military
display, were induced to elect him full President.

On the 10th October he took his final oath of office as President for a
term of five years before a great gathering of officials and the whole
diplomatic body in the magnificent Throne Room of the Winter Palace.
Safe now in his Constitutional position nothing remained for him but to
strike. On the 4th November he issued an arbitrary Mandate, which
received the counter-signature of the whole Cabinet, ordering the