Wu Pei-fu and his staff have proved abundantly to the nation that in ignoring the traditions of Chinese warfare they had a wider vision and a keener intuition than any group of men in this country wearing uniforms. If Wu _Pei-fu and his advisers prove by effecting reunion now and putting an end to internal strife that they are right in their transcendental view of the political situation which ignores all the rules of the political game, they will deserve credit for as wide vision and as keen intuition in politics as in warfare. The reunion of China now and the peaceful evolution of a competent Government in Peking would be more of a joke upon Wu Pei-fu's friends than upon his enemies. For while his friends have stood consistently by because he combined in his person obvious honesty of purpose, courage, unselfishness and great military ability, they have been confessing almost tearfully for several years that as a politician he was not only inept, but would net be instructed or guided. If the optimism which now pervades Wu Pei-fu's little circle in Paotingfu is accurately prophetic, then all the other big political figures in China are triflers and quibblers compared with the commander of the 3rd Division and all the students of Chinese affairs have wasted a lot of time dissecting futilities.
Pushing this transcendental view of the situation further, under the inspiration which the writer gathered in Paotingfu, the success or failure of the existing Government in Peking does not matter much. It will be of no great import to the nation whether the old parliament goes seriously to work and does something or whether it reverts to its old tactics and disgusts the nation with a lot of constitutional hocus-poons. The centrifugal movement in China is at an end and if the Government is useless the nation will not divide to protest against it on the one hand or to defend it on the other, but will concentrate upon either improving or. replacing it. According to this theory nothing can again divide China but military control, support of, or interference in the government, and this Wu Pei-fu is not going to provide. He is going back to Loyang where, as from a strategic centre, he will see that no one else provides this disrupting force.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.