The neighbouring province of Kuangsi, under the leadership General Wong Shin-hung, hi working for months in entire har-many with the Kuangtung Govern ment. Stil, Kuangsi right along has been more in the nature of a vassd province than an integral part of the Nationalist territory. Due to the constant danger of an attack from Yunnan, the political leaders of Kuangsi have been slow to give up revenues that should go to. the Nationalist government, and have! been slow to give up sovereignty, Dut, with the death of Tong Kai-yiu, conditions have changed. The pow: er of Yonnan no longer is feared, for the hundred and one minor and sectional leaders of that province lack a supreme head, as was General Tong, before whom all will bow, and the threat of an attack on Kuangsi hardly is possible until provincial unity in Yunnan once more is established.
To make a long story short, Kuangsi has come into the Na-alist fold, and may be said have changed from the status of territory to that of a state or Province of the national—government. Its own government is to be completely reorganized, with Wong Shin-hung, however, as heretofore, at its head, occupying position in Kuangsi that Lei Tsai-sam occupies in Kuangtung, A new branch Central Executive Committee is to be organized in Kuang. si, its powers to be the same as that of the branch committee which meets in Canton City Intricate Finance Mr. Koo Ying-fan, according to a telegram from the north, is to resign from the office of Provincial Treasurer, but before he goes he will meet' in conference the heads of all the branch finance offices in Nationalist territory. A. call for such a meeting, to be held at Nanking, already has been sent out, 'A financial crisis has been reach-never was there a time when money was so badly needed for curren Jexpenses as now. Koo Ying-fan's idea is to bring all the funds which are being collected by local officials directly under the control of the national treasury. Local control always has been an inherent weakness of China's financial system, and even to-day local officials are in the habit of keeping all or part of the money collected by them, pleading that in no other way can they properly provide for the needs of their governments. Hoh Chap-ug, Garrison Commander at Swe tow, recently tendered his resignation when friction developed—between him and Koo Ying-fan over the question of who should control the revenues of that port. in April last, an order was published making compulsory the pur ichaso by all' property-owners of Kung Chai Pin, a form of government bond, to an amount equal to the monthly rent which they take in, So hard up are the landlords, and so strenuously did they fight, that few dollars were paid into the treasury and, for the time being, the order became a dead letter. The present financial exigency requires that this order now should be revived. That it may not place too great a burden on the landlord, it has been left to the discretion ' of the police to say whether or not he can afford to pay his quota. If his rents are small, he may escape payment altogether, or the police may
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.