Even in this most serious matter the element of comedy was not lacking. Dr. Goodnow had by special arrangement returned to Peking at the psychological moment; for having kicked his heels during many weary months in the capital, he had been permitted in 1914 to take up the appointment of President of an American University on condition that he would be available for legal "advice" whenever wanted. The Summer vacation gave him the opportunity of revisiting in the capacity of a transient adviser the scenes of his former idleness; and the holiday-task set him by his large-hearted patron was to prove in as few folios as possible that China ought to be a Monarchy and not a Republic--a theme on which every schoolboy could no doubt write with fluency. Consequently Dr. Goodnow, arming himself with a limited amount of paper and ink, produced in very few days the Memorandum which follows,--a document which it is difficult to speak of dispassionately since it seems to have been deliberately designed to play into the hands of a man who was now openly set on betraying the trust the nation reposed in him, and who was ready to wade through rivers of blood to satisfy his insensate ambition.
[Illustration: President Li Yuan-Hung and the General Staff watching the Review.]
[Illustration: March-past of an Infantry Division.]
Nothing precisely similar to this Goodnow Memorandum has ever been seen before in the history of Asia: it was the ultramodern spirit impressed into the service of mediaeval minds. In any other capital of the world the publication of such a subversive document, following the Yang Tu pamphlet, would have led to riot and tumult. In China, the home of pacifism, the politicians and people bowed their heads and bided their time. Even foreign circles in China were somewhat nonplussed by the insouciance displayed by the peripatetic legal authority; and the Memorandum was for many days spoken of as an unnecessary indiscretion.[16] Fastening at once on the point to which Yang Tu had ascribed such importance--the question of succession--Dr. Goodnow in his arguments certainly shows a detachment from received principles which has an old-world flavour about it, and which has damned him for ever in the eyes of the rising generation in China. The version which follows is the translation of the Chinese translation, the original English Memorandum having been either mislaid or destroyed; and it is best that this argument should be carefully digested before we add our comments.