ssolution like that of death, a total
disappearance, an evaporation.

Corruption had worked inward, as it has a way of doing.
Japanese-bought munitions would not explode; quartermasters vanished
with the funds with which stores were to be bought; troops went
without anything to eat for two or three days; large numbers,
including the larger part of one division, went over to the enemy en
masse; those who did not desert had no heart for fighting and ran away
or surrendered on the slightest provocation, saying they were willing
to fight for their country but saw no reason why they should fight for
a faction, especially a faction that had been selling the country to a
foreign nation. In the manner of the defeat of the Anfu clique at the
height of its supremacy, rather than in the mere fact of its defeat,
lies the credit side of the Chinese political balance sheet. It is a
striking exhibition of the oldest and best faith of the Chinese--the
power of moral considerations. Public opinion, even that of the coolie
on the street, was wholly against the Anfu party. It went down not so
much because of the strength of the other side as because of its own
rottenness.

So far the results are to all appearances negative. The most marked is
the disappearance of Japanese prestige. As one of the leading men in
the War Office said: "For over a year now the people have been
strongly opposed to the Japanese government on account of Shantung.
But now even the generals do not care for Japan any more." It is
hardly logical to take the easy collapse of the Japanese-supported
Anfu party as a proof of the weakness of Japan, but prestige is always
a matter of feeling rather than of logic. Many who were intimidated to
the point of hypnotism by the idea of the irresistible power of Japan
are now freely laughing at the inefficiency of Japanese leadership. It
would not be safe to predict that Japan will not come back as a force
to be reckoned with in the internal as well as external politics of
China, but it is safe to say that never again will Japan figure as
superman to China. And such a negation is after all a positive result.

And so in its way is the overthrow of the Anwhei faction of the
militarist party. The Chinese liberals do not feel very optimistic
about the immediate outcome. They have mostly given up the idea that
the country can be reformed by political means. They are sceptical
about the possibility of reforming even politics until a