Several weeks ago Marshal Tuan Chi-jui told a Japanese journalist who interviewed him that he had come to hope that Tsao would be elected. and that quickly, because. his collapse could then be readily engineered. If Tuan Chi-iui's subordinates and allies throughout the country shared this hope it is easy to explain why General Li Yuan-hung. upon his belated visit to Shanghai, found himself so poorly supported and why prospects have become so much brighter in Peking. The money and influence which enabled several hundred opposition members of parliament to.meet in Shanchai and conspire against the Chihli party did not emanate from the ejected president. As everyone knows, the stage managers for this little one ring performance were chiefly of the Anfu persuasion. These persons had not the slightest intention at any time of restoring to Li Yuan-hung any degree of power or influence. They planned deliberately to use him as a rallying figure in their organized opposition to Tsao Kun, but they certainly planned to drop him without ceremony whenever the Tsao Kun organization collapsed. He would automatically cease to be useful, also, whenever they made up their minds to withdraw their opposition to Tsao Kun's election and to let the opposition members return to Peking and fatten on the Chihli party's bounty. It would appear that Generel Li made up his mind to go to Shanghai just about the time that the patrons of the Shanghai parliament decided that the wisest policy was to give Tsao Kun a little more rope. Hence the ex-President's disappointment and discomfiture. It is to be assumed that the Anfu leaders are quite indifferent to Li Yuan-hung's position. The Ohihli leaders are, however, delighted, not so much because Li's career, as a political figure, seems to have come to an abrupt end but because this political demise would also' eliminate his.two advisers and responsible agents. Li Ken-yuan and Oh'u Futch'eng, who are the pet aversions of all good Tsao Kun men.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.