'The Cantonese people, enslaved, robbed and persecuted for the last 10 years or more, are beginning to wake up. May 27 saw the feder tion of all the Merchants' Vol-unter Corps in Kuantung under the leadership of the Canton Corps. Tt may be recalled that as early as 1912 some merchants in Canton had organizations for local defence under arms with the sanction of the Government. The present Kuangtung Corps has established central command at the headquarters of the Canton contingent. Its influence was shown early this month when Kaukong, a Wes River port, was able to oust the Yunnanese' troops there with the assistance of volunteers from the 1d neighbouring towns. Late in last month too, the citizens of Canton succeeded in getting Dr. Sun to repeal the tax on medicine and the order for the standardization of the price of all land bordering on modern roads. It was obvious that the people would not have have taken such strong action if they had not been able to depend on the backing of the volunteers. At the present time the militarists find that they cannot levy taxes at will as formerly, except in places where volunteers cannot be called in action, The main difieulty checking the progress of the vol-unter movement is that of getting arms lawfully.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.