Yunnanfu Dec, 30.
The condition of Yunnan appears to be getting no hetter rapidly. Old-timers in this province say they never saw it in such a bad state. Recently the Foreign Office requested that foreigners should not even go for little excursions into the adjacent country without applying for an escort. Several foreigners are waiting in the capital to take long journeys in different directions, but the government refuses to give them military escorts, and their consuls will not permit them to travel without government permis-} sion and protection.
General Li has recently left to;
of Defence at Talifu. He had a perform his duties as Commissioner large retinue of his: own, and in addition many people and many loads of goods went along, as it was good opportunity to get through in safety.
There are rumours of a military expedition into Kuangsi- to cooperate with General Liu of Kuangsi in fighting the Yunnan army that fled to that province when Governor Tang returned a few months ago. It is believed that that army is preparing to come up to-avenge the killing of former Governor Ku. A conflict of some sort in the near future seems very probable.
Meanwhile the government is borrowing what money it can from the Fu Tien Bank, the provincial bank, and silver is tightening up. Every day crowds of people besiege the bank to exchange notes for silver. They never get as many; notes exchanged as they wish, so they always bring several times as many notes as they expect to succeed in changing. Needless to say, business is languishing.
The. condition of the province reminds one of the story of the man who went into partnership with another man in buying a cow. The arrangement was that he was to look after the front half of the cow, while his partner had sole jurisdiction over the other half. {Bult he found he was playing a losing game. When asked what he did about it, he replied, "I killed my half and his half died."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.