be adopted.

The plan suggested is for each province to send in a separate
petition, the draft of which will be made in Peking and wired to the
respective provinces in due course. If you approve, you will insert
your name as well as those of the gentry and merchants of the
province who agree to the draft. These petitions are to be presented
one by one to the Legislative Chamber, as soon as it is convoked. At
all events, the change in the form of the State will have to be
effected under the colour of carrying out the people's will.

As leading members of political and military bodies, we should wait
till the opportune moment arrives when we will give collateral
support to the movement. Details of the plan will be made known to
you from time to time.

This method of circular telegrams, which had been inherited from the
last days of the Manchus, and vastly extended during the
_post_-revolutionary period, was now to be used to the very utmost in
indoctrinating the provinces with the idea that not only was the
Republic doomed but that prompt steps must be taken to erect the
Constitutional Monarchy by use of fictitious legal machinery so that it
should not be said that the whole enterprise was a mere plot.
Accordingly, on the 10th September, as a sequel to the telegram we have
just quoted, an enormous circular message of several thousand words was
sent in code from Peking to all the Military and Civil Governors in the
provinces instructing them precisely how to act in order to throw a
cloak over the nefarious deed. After explaining the so-called "Law on
the General Convention of the Citizens' Representatives" (_i.e._
national referendum) the following illuminating sentences occur which
require no comment showing as they do what apt pupils reactionary
Chinese are in the matter of ballot-fraud.

... (1) The fact that no fewer than one hundred petitions for a
change in the form of State have been received from people residing
in all parts of the country shows that the people are of one mind
concerning this matter. Hence the words in the "General Convention
Law": "to be decided by the General Convention of the Citizens'
Representatives," refer to nothing more than the formal approval of
the Convention and are by no means intended to give room for
discussion of any kind. Indeed, it was never intended that the
citizens should have any choice bet