When threats were made that the Provincial Military Department. would be abolished, the administra tive bureau of that department, caused to be stretched across one of the principal streets 2 long banner on which was written:—"Down with the Communists of the Fourth and Eleventh Armies." Not to be out-done, the administrative Bureau of Cheung's army made public announcement, through the medium of street posters, that it was their troops who' had taken Swatow, meaning that they consider the soldiers of Hoh Lung and Yih Ting to be part and parcel of their own army, a deliberate and premeditated insult to the army of Lee Tsai-
At one of the most recent con ference held by high officers xepresenting the two factions, an agreement Was reached calling for the abolition of the Provincial Military Department, and in its stead of a new department to be formed, to control the military affairs of both Kuangtung and Kuangsi. Tt was also agreed that Leo Tsai-sam should head this board. This idea iwas not new with any of these present at the conference. Nanking. already had given orders that this should be, and the fact that they consented to General Lee presiding over the new department was not 'a particularly handsome concession on the part of Cheung Fai-ful's off. cers, for immediately thereafter they made an insistent demand that their group should have the right to appoint the Treasurer, Commissioner of Internal Affairs, and the head of the municipal govern: ment. As far as this question is, concerned, an agreement has not been arrived at, but it is manifest from the very nature of the proposal that these officers still are Hlotting to overthrow General Leo, for he who holds the key to the Treasury can pretty well control the military department, since he can. cut off its financial allowance entirely if the notion strikes him,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.