Pho extracts, which we publish to-day from the Chinese Press, sufficiently, if directly, indicate how uneasy Chinese are feeling about the breach between Peking and the South.
News has reached us that Mr. Tang Shao-yi has telegraphed to President Yuan Shih-kai appealing to him, by the old friendship so long existing between them, to resign the Presidency forthwith, in order to avoid further bloodshed. Mr. Tang Shao-yi tells President Yuan, further, that he has betrayed his oath to the constitution and has lost the confidence of the people.
A further interesting item ct news is that President Yuan has appealed to Chiangchun Feng Kuo-chang, of Nanking, to act as media-for between himself and the southern leaders and to persuade other provinces to help him in his work of mediation. At the same time President Yuan is supposed to have told General Feng Kuo-chang that the republicans of the South must lay down their arms as a preliminary condition to all questions of peace.
An interesting point of law has been raised by some Chinese to the effect that President Yuan cannot reinstate himeelf as president, that position being elective. From the moment that he was elected, or caused himself to be elected emperor, he, ipso facto, resigned the position of president, which thus becomes vacant and it is not for him to replace himself in that posi tion.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.