It also explains, what must be otherwise inexplicable to the outsider who does not follow Chinese affairs from tha all-important viewpoint of. personal relations, why there is such intense and bitter opposition to the acting Premier, W. W. Yen, throughout the South, and why the parliamentarians begin to fume against him the moment they detrain in Peking. There is of course no implication that he wad associated with the ex-President in any such machinations as Tsao and Lu are traditionally charged with. He was sumply a political pupil, but that he was the pupil of such a master is enough for the firebrands coming back from Shanghai and the South. This unhappy Dr. Yen has, since his return to Peking, come in for the opposition of the old conservatives as well es the firebrands, for no other reason than because he deserted Hsu Shih-chang at the eleventh hour and hurried away to gob on the new bandwagon. They allege that he was responsible for Hsu Shih-chang's protracted tenure of office and therefore for the undignified character of his leaving, because he was the one who persuaded the old President that the Diplomatic Body wanted him to stay, and that then, having promised Hsu lasting fidelity and support, he deserted when he saw that the game was up. In Paotingfu he is regarded from both angles, for there they are both firebrands and conservatives. This is writ to explain what must other wi seem an unreasoning. prejudice against a young and able foreign trained diplomat and so that it will rot be too mystifying to the general public if Dr. Yen's tenure of office in the present government is short.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.