CHAOS AND ANARCHY IN CHINESE REPUBLIC.

A GLOOMY OUTLOOK.

LAST HOPE OF SALVATION.

From PERCEVAL LANDON. HONG KONG, Sunday. I have just concluded an inland journey from Pekin to Canton, which has brought me into contact with almost every aspect of life of Central China – industrial and agricultural, prosperous and depressed alike. My way took me past the great half-europeanised centres of the Yangtze Valley and through quite unknown districts, where white men had never been seen before; the aspects of China at war and China under the daily threat of brigandage were revealed; my companion and I went in chairs around the almost inconceivably rich rice lands of Hunan – of which the inhabitants claim that in a good year their province alone can feed all China, and in which a 120 per cent. harvest is now being laboriously gathered in. We dropped down dead rivers, on which no floating thing moved except our own junk, and through shut and deserted towns, so universal is the terror of the riverine population of the South. We watched the military effort of both sides in the futile and malignant struggle which at this supreme moment in China’s history is sowing deeper and deeper seeds of discontent and disunion, and at last, in baffled civilisation at Canton, there was spread before us proof of that helpless stagnation of civil life, of trade, and of all political hope which is stifling the South even more than the North.

And throughout this visit of inquiry one unhappy fact has become more and more clear and certain – that by no body of men could the mass of the people of China be as miserably misrepresented as by the men, whether of the old or the new Parliaments, into whose nerveless and intriguing hands the interests and wellbeing of the country have been committed.

SOUTH CHINA TROUBLES.

It perhaps will be of interest to deal first with the military situation in South China. The expulsion of Dr. Sun Yat Sen from office in Canton took place at a time when the impetuous but ill-organised Manchurian expedition had been launched against, the Northern Parliament. Its despatch was timed to synchronise with Chang Tso Lin’s unsuccessful raid into Chihli, but it lacked a leader as qualified as Chang Tso Lin to bring the troops off again from a lost enterprise. An unwieldy rabble of malcontents from Kwangtung, Hunan, and Yunnan have for the past two months been lurching backwards and forwards in 4he midst of a wide terror-stricken area along the frontiers at Kwangtung, living by pillage, without either leadership or plan of action, almost without munitions, and out of hand, intent only—so far as any of them have any clear purpose at all – upon getting home, therein lies the kernel of the present situation in South China. Dr. Sun Yat Sen, who is now exercising a braggart but impotent authority from the decks of his cruiser Yungfeng, depends wholly upon this return of his expeditionary force, not so much for his return to power as for his very existence.

On the other hand, Chen Chiung Ming is determined that, as a fighting unit, not a man of Sun Yat Sen’s expedition shall ever reach his home again.slowly, but with fair steadiness, he and his’ Lieutenant Yehchu are breaking up the hordes nominally commanded by Hsu Chung Chih. On our way down the North River we passed through the outposts of both sides, receiving civility from each. In Shiuchou itself a state of desolation reigned, in a city that has suffered pillage twice within the last few months.

SUN YAT SEN’S MENTAL BREAKDOWN.

Still, as I have said, Chen Chiung Ming is slowly breaking up this Northern expeditionary force. Unfortunately, as no one knows better than he, that achievement of his aim will merely disperse upon the face of the unfortunate country 20,000 men who are still nominally grouped under the banners of Hsu Chung Chih and his lieutenants Chu Pai Teh, from Yunnan, and Chen Chia Yu, from Hunan. No means exist for detaining these truculent followers of Sun Yat Sen as prisoners of war. The situation is not much helped by the mental ill-health of Sun Yat Sen at this moment, whose nervous prostration has already required the assistance of two foreign brain specialists.

But the disappearance of Sun Yat Sen from the arena will avail little. The root of the trouble is that the only hope of the future in South China – and, therefore, in all China – lies in Chen Chiung Ming. But with a resolute determination greater even than that of Wu Pei Fu, who occupies a similar position in Northern politics, he refuses to come forward as the saviour of the situation. Had this trouble arisen in Europe, two men of the moment would recognise their responsibilities and make common cause. But here neither one nor the other will intervene, although it is obvious that without their support the action of no other party or person in China can effect anything.

“YEARS OF TURMOIL” TO COME.

If the truth must be told, chaos, helpless, and ever deepening, broods over this richest of Eastern lands. It is with poignant regret that after three months’ study of Chinese affairs, both at first hand and with the cordially extended help of everyone here who is in a position to form an accurate opinion of the situation, one leaves the country convinced that there lie before China years’ of turmoil and internecine strife. She can only be raised, by her own efforts, and she still awaits, and is likely long to await, a saviour from among her own people.