2th June.
Tt comes as a very great relief to everyone to whom the preservation of the peace in the province of Shantung is of consequence, to know that on the very day on which the news reached us of the death of the mother an imp rial decree was issued prescribing exactly the course which we said in our leading article on Monday last we hoped the Throne wou'd command. Yuan Shih-kai is only to go into retirement in his yamen at Chinanfu for a hundred days, during which time the Provincial Treasurer Hu Ting-kan is to be acting Governor of Shantung, but the latter is to consult Yuan Shih-kai on all maters of importance. So Governor Yuan will keep his he'd on his province, and the calamities which would undoubtedly have happened if he had had to go into the usual twenty-seven months? mourning are happily averted.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.