In a Mandate, issued in response to this Bill, Yuan Shih-kai merely limits himself to handing over the control of the elections and voting to the local authorities, safe in the knowledge that every detail of the plot had been carefully worked out in advance.  By this time the fact that a serious and dangerous movement was being actively pushed had been well-impressed on the Peking Legations, and some anxiety was publicly manifested.  It was known that Japan, as the active enemy of Yuan Shih-kai, could not remain permanently silent:  and on the 28th October in association with Great Britain and Russia, she indeed made official inquiries at the Chinese Foreign Office regarding the meaning of the movement.  She was careful, however, to declare that it was her solicitude for the general peace that alone dictated her action. [Footnote:  A very remarkable illustration of the manner in which Yuan Shih-kai was trapped by official Japan during the monarchist movement has recently been extensively quoted in the Far Eastern press.  Here is the substance of a Japanese (vernacular) newspaper account showing the uses to which Japanese politicians put the Press: 

“...  When that question was being hotly discussed in China Marquis Okuma, interviewed by the Press, stated that monarchy was the right form of government for China and that in case a monarchical regime was revived Yuan Shih-kai was the only suitable person to sit on the Throne.  When this statement by Marquis Okuma was published in the Japanese papers, Yuan Shih-kai naturally concluded that the Japanese Government, at the head of which Marquis Okuma was, was favourably disposed towards him and the monarchical movement.  It can well be imagined, therefore, how intense was his surprise when he later received a warning from the Japanese Government against the resuscitation of the monarchy in China.  When this inconsistency in the Marquis’s actions was called in question in the Japanese House of Representatives, the ex-Premier absolutely denied the truth of the statement attributed to him by the Japanese papers, without any show of hesitancy, and thus boldly shirked the responsibility which, in reality, lay on him ... “] Nevertheless, her warning had an unmistakable note about it and occasioned grave anxiety, since the ultimatum of the previous May in connection with the Twenty-one Demands had not been forgotten.  At the beginning of November the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs, replying verbally to these representations, alleged that the movement had gone too far for it to be stopped and insisted that no apprehensions need be felt by the Foreign Powers regarding the public safety.  Dissatisfied by this reply all the Entente Powers, now including France and Italy, renewed their representations, receiving a few days later a formal Note in which absolute guarantees were given that law and order would be sedulously preserved.  Baffled by this firmness, and conscious that further intervention in such matter would be fraught with grave difficulties, the Entente Powers decided to maintain a watchful attitude but to do no more publicly.  Consequently events marched forward so rapidlly that by December the deed was done, and Yuan Shih-kai had apparently been elected unanimously Emperor of China by the provincial ballot.