CHINESE PRESIDENT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 36, 13 October 1913, Page 5

CHINESE PRESIDENT.

INAUGURATION CEREMONY AN ASSASSINATION PLOT. [By Electric Telegraph—Copyright] [United Press Association.] Peking, October 11. Yuan-Shih-Kai’s presidential inauguration at Taiho Palace was a brilliant and picturesque scene. Chen, chief of the mounted palice, has been arrested. He confessed that the southern rebels bribed him to attempt to assassinate Yuan-Shih-Kai at to-day’s function. A number of bombs were found by the police on his premises, and suspicion was aroused by Chen’s anxiety to secure a position near the president.

Mrs Aubrey Le Blond, the wellknown woman traveller, who recently returned to England from China ano Korea, sent to tho Daily Mail an account of. tho Chinese President, Yuan-Shih-Kai, in which she states that she has reason, to believe Yuan-Shili-Kai intends ,to ho the first Emperor of a new dynasty, because ho and others realise that China, under a republic, is unthinkable. Yuan-Sliih-Kai’s eldest son, Yuan-Yun-Tai, who would succeed him as Emperor,'speaks English well, and has English friends to whom ho is attached. Yuan never leaves his residence and its grounds, for his assassination would ho the signal for anarchy all over tho country. His quarters, with their extensive grounds, are walled around, and everywhere there are crowds of armed men. It is said that some 10,000 nicked troops arc quartered within. It is impossible for anyone to obtain admittance without a special invitation from the President. Yuan has much aged during the last year, harassed as he is by constant anxieties and responsibilities. “Should the revolution in the south,” Mrs Le Blond concludes, “threaten the dismemberment cf China,, the situation would become grave for Europe. Japan practically owns Manchuria. To the north of Pekin the Russians are steadily possessing themselves of Mongolia. Imagine China, torn asunder by civil war, with Japan and Russia on her flanks! Think o! the loan made by Europe on, the security of the rule of one man, and then consider how great an inducement is offered to Yuan-Shih-Kai to inaugurate a stable Imperial Government.”