In the following brilliant survey, which extends from the Ché- kiang Tuchun's recent declaration in favour of provincial autonomy to the invasion of Shensi by General Wu Pei-fu, Mr. Rodney Uilbert throws u vivid light on many conflicting passions now at work in Chinese people and on the tnyenuity of the old gang in wrecking schemes—such as the self-government move—which threaten their ascendancy.
It should be read by all who take an interest ix the struggles and turmoil of China to-day. ye Peking, June 23.
Since General Lu Yung-hsiang began a few weeks ago to announce through telegrams and proclamations that he was about to appear in the field as the champion of the two new ideas of provincial autonomy and local self-government, the North has been virtually inundated with propaganda against him. His doctrines Peking dares not attack, but his motives have been made to appear in the worst possible light. The most telling charge brought aguinst him by the organs which serve the Government is that he is inspired in his moyement by the Anfuites and that he designs to establish a new Anfu base in the Yangtze Valley from which a political assault will be made upon Peking.
This sort of publicity is at once clever' and stupid. It is clever because there is no surer way of discrediting and condemning a man and a movement in the mind of the great mass of the semi-intelligent and semi-informed in this country, then by_associating them with Antuism. It is stupid because such propaganda put before the intelligent element in China is retroactivea and comes back like a boomerang upon Peking. If a new play for power is being made vy the old Anfu leaders, it is possible that Hsu Shu-tseng is acting as the agent in the Yangtze Valley, but it is also certain that the movement is~being directed from Pehing.
Lu Yung-hsiang was never ay Anfu map, any more than Ma Liang or Fu Liang-tso. He was a Tuan man and, like many another high military leader who was stubbornly oval to Tuan Chi-jui, he was not fond of Little Hsu. If Hsu Shu-tseng is promoting trouble in Chekiang he is doing it with the authority of Tuan Chi-jui who has turned ascetic and recites Buddhist classics in his big house behind the Ministry of War.
Axru Srrone iN Pexine.
One does not need to remind those who are well posted that the leaders who nade up the high directorate of the Anfu party and who were responsible for all the negotiations and bargains with Japan which stirred the nation to a frenzy, are all at large and, with the exception of Hsu Shu-tseng, are; all in Peking. Tuan Chi-jui is here, Chin Yun-peng, who signed the} South and, sad to relate, the con-Military Agreement with Japan, and sensus of opinion now seems to be who is said to have endorsed nearly all the Nishihara loans, is safe in the Premiership. Tsao Ju-lin and Lu Tsung-yji, who conceived and executed all of the biggest deals are honoured advisers to President Hsu Shih-tseng, who introduced them into high politics and protected them when their political organization was shot to pieces last summer.
These are the men who constituted the supreme council in the management of Anfu affairs and while they are here and are exercising an influence upon the Government it is absurd to think that Little Hsu could or would move a man like Lu Yung-hsiang to revive Anfuism in the South without their authority and cooperation. If the Chekiang Tuchun is starting a new Anfu movement, then Peking in exposing it has exposed to suspicion some of the most prominent residents of its own official community, and, if it sincerely wishes to suppress the movement, it will be obliged to put under close surveillance the high personages al-revely mentioned without whose authority neither Little Hsu nor any other subordinate could reassemble the Anfu following.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.