File No. 893.00/2744
Minister Reinsch to the Secretary of State
Peking, November 20, 1917.
Sir: I have the honor to report that on November 16, 1917, General Tuan Chi-jui, the Prime Minister, and his whole Cabinet, resigned. On November 17 extended meetings took place between the Cabinet and the President, at the end of which the resignations were withdrawn. Today it is again expected that the resignation of the Premier will very shortly be again presented. Even should he remain, it is likely that the Chin Pu Tang members of the Cabinet will resign.
As I previously intimated, it was not unlikely that the Premier would voluntarily withdraw in order to facilitate harmony between the North and the South, with the expectation that he would return to power later with a good chance of becoming President. The desire for retirement has come sooner than was anticipated. In the meantime the authority of General Tuan has been greatly weakened. His representative, General Fu Liang-tso, can not maintain himself as Tuchun of Hunan; as previously reported this official was made the subject of concentrated attacks on the part of General Tuan’s opponents, who desired to test the latter’s authority at this point.
The attempted dismissal of General Meng, the Tuchun of Kirin, proved unsuccessful. Orders given to General Lu, the officer in command at Shanghai, instructing him to give military support to General Fu Liang-tso, were disregarded by the latter, though of course in polite terms.
The result of these various instances of defiance of authority was that though the power of General Tuan’s Cabinet rests avowedly upon a military basis, its military orders did not carry beyond Peking.
There is no question that General Tuan’s authority was greatly weakened through the common conviction on” the part of the Chinese that certain members of his Cabinet, particularly Mr. Tsao Ju-lin, the Minister of Communications, as wed as General Hsu Shu-tseng, Vice Minister of War, had fallen completely under Japanese influence and were attempting to put through certain contracts and agreements highly unfavorable to China. The popular dissatisfaction on this score came to a head when the viceroys of the Yangtse River provinces addressed the Central Government with the demand to make explanations on that point. The nature of the charges currently made against the Cabinet of General Tuan will be apparent from the enclosed newspaper articles which cover the period of the past ten days.
The National Council, which has been convoked and had its inaugural meeting on November 10, has not strengthened the Central Government, and its existence has already become a negligible factor.
Foreign opinion was typified by the following statement made to me by one of the most experienced of my colleagues:
The universal disapproval of General Tuan’s Cabinet is a promising sign, it shows that there is a limit to what will be endured by the Chinese people. Moreover, it proves that the attempt to govern by military power without regard to the [Page 111] underlying principles of the Constitution can not be successful. General Tuan’s authority is so shaken that his retirement can be a question only of a short time. It is a pity that he did not surround himself with better advisers.
I have [etc.]