The Nanking Constitution, accepted by Yuan Shi Kai, while it defined the provisional presi dent's powers, did not fix his term of office or settle the method of the election of future presidents. On 10 March Yuan formally took the oath of office and the seat of government was transferred from the Southern capital to the Northern capital, that is frrom Nanking to Peking. On 29 April the new Parliament, or National Assembly, of the Chinese Republic was formally opened; 177 senators and 500 representatives present. Most of the dele gates from the provinces of China proper were dressed in black coats of the European style. The other divisions, Mongolia and Tibet, were well represented. Dissensions in the Cabinet soon developed, rising to a crisis in June, in which the President and the Southerners, or Cantonese, were in opposition to each other on the question of Cabinet formation. The South rons insisted that there should be government by party, the Cabinet to be either wholly neutral or formed from one of the three parties then existing, and that the ministers of one of them, the Tungmenhui, should resign their portfolios. To this Yuan Shi Kai was opposed and he gained the victory. The retiring ministers then allied themselves tq another party in opposition to the government. During the ensuing sum mer numerous local outbreaks occurred in southern China. •In August, when a plot against the Republic was unearthed, two of the leaders in Peking were arrested and summarily shot. The Parliament made severe criticism of this act of the chief executive, but when Yuan made public the full facts, a majority of the members justified him, and on 6 October Yuan Shi Kai was elected by the National Assembly per manent President of the Republic, no limit be ing set to his term of office. On this same day, Russia and Japan formally acknowledged the Chinese republic, the United States and some other countries making no move in this direc tion.
It was hoped at home and abroad that by the co-ordination in harmony of the legislative and executive branches, a true republican gov ernment in China would be the result. Yet here China's initial experiences tallied with those of Japan's, showing how much alike are human experiences in the application of politi cal science. In Kioto in 1868, in the re bound from despotic one-man power of the Shogun and in compliance with the oath of the Mikado, put into his mouth by liberal revolu tionists, a deliberative assembly was called and twice, in 1869 and in 1870, met in Tokio. Its members being utterly without experience and ignorant of the, problems pressing upon the nation for quick solution, the gathering became first a mere debating society and then an obstruct tive force, hindering good government. It was dissolved and no national assembly was called again, until after violent agitation, in 1889, or 21 years later. Moreover, many of the men who led in the revolution of 1868, which placed the Mikado in supreme power, had hoped for a limited monarchy after the English fashion, with the sovereign responsible to the Parlia ment. Instead of this, arbitrary government by a bureaucracy, or committee of a few ministers held its own and ruled the empire until 1889. Even when the constitution was proclaimed, the Liberals, after a generation of agitation, felt themselves betrayed by the men who had so long and exclusively held the power, in that the Prussian instead of the English model had been followed and that all the legislative powers of the Imperial Diet comprised a mere fraction of what had been hoped for. China, in 1912,
not only lacked the experience of the other nations, in which a republican form of govern ment has beep successful, but even that pre liminary intellectual preparation, through phi losophy and the critical study of history, that had lent such power and so admirably fitted the Japanese leaders to change•the system in vogue for over 600 years. From the start, without attending to the pressing and intricate problems facing the nation, the one purpose of the Chinese Parliament of 1914, especially among the Southern members, seemed to he to hamper the President in every possible way, preventing his obtaining the necessary money for national reconstruction, to reduce him to a mere figure head and to place all power in the hands of the Cabinet. The action of the President in sign ing the Five Power Loan contract on 26 April, without consent of the National Assembly, was repudiated by a large majority in the taken 29 April and 5 May. The truce between the two parties now ended and threats were made of a second revolution in the South. Yuan answered by announcing coercion as the policy forced upon him to preserve the re public. A deadlock lasting two months fol lowed. In July, a cashiered officer started a re bellion which soon spread through the Yang-tse provinces and the Nanking army joined the in surgents. By prompt action and good finance, backed by the loyalty of the well-paid navy and the provinces north, east and west, after some fighting near Shanghai, the revolt was suppressed and the leaders, with Sun Yat Sen, fled to Japan. In a word, before even the foundations had been laid for aparliament, here were men utterly inexperienced, trying to found a republic. After eight months of un productive wrangling, the Cromwellian single precedent of England in 1653, and the double one of the Mikado of Japan in 1869 and in 1870, were followed. Yuan expelled from the Parliament the Kuo Ming Tang, or body of obstructives, by mandate of 4 Nov. 1913, on the plea of their complicity in the southern revolt.
No quorum being left for business, Yuan nominated 71 members of the Assembly to form an Administrative Council. This body, legislative and advisory, was to take the place of or represent the Premier, the Cabinet, the nine ministers and the provinces. With this body Yuan exercised full government powers and, with the approval of its members, issued on 11 Jan. 1914 a proclamation dissolving the National Assembly and, later, the district councils in the provinces, as being seditious in character and as hindrances to national adminis tration. In a new draft of the constitution, amended by a convention of his own nominees and published 1 May 1914, the power of the President is increased by his virtual domina tion of the single-chambered legislature, which has no more control over the Mixed expendi tures)) prepared by theovernment, than has J the Imperial Diet of Japan. An advisory council assists the President but there is no Cabinet and all authority over the provinces i and the army and navy is centralized in the executive. It was this concentration of power that enabled the government to suppress with comparative ease the uprising in the south, organized and led by Sun Yat Sen.