Peking, The Government's decision to appoint General Ma Fwhsiang Tuchun of Kansu and to remove Chang Kuang-chien from that office has aroused a great deal more comment in the Chinese press than one would have anticipated, considering how far removed Kansu is from the whirl of metropolitan polities and how little the Chinese know of the province in general.
Tt was an inevitable move and hag been under consideration for nearly two years; and it is a step which will undoubtedly be welcome ed by the majority of the Kansu people, but Chang Kuang-chien, an Anfuite, and a loyal follower of Puan Chi-jui, has been in office for seven years, has gained control of all the provincial institutions which centre in Lanchowfu and is therefore in a position now to carry on a strong propaganda against the Mohammedan leader. This _accounts for the amount of anti-Ma correspondence from Kansu which fills the local papers. All manner, of protests from officials,—educational societies, chambers of com: merce and the like are printed from day to day raising objections to the appointment of a Tuchun "from an alien race." The whole _propaganda, which the Government rightly traces to Chang Kuang-chien, turns upon the prejudice of} the Chinese against the Moslems. No mention is made of the relative, merits of the governor to be removed and the governor to be.
Yuan Shih-kai, however, reversed the Manchu policy, sent Chang Kuang-chien into the province with Chihli and Shantung troops and relegated Ma An-liang to the background. For months it seemed that a Moslem rising against the newcomers was inevitable, but General Ma exerted all his influence to keep the peace, withdrew his troops to the frontier town of Hochow and still kept a heavy hand upon his coreligionists.
In the autumn of 1918 he died and all the little factional differences among the Mohammedans which he had kept down at once began to come to the surface. The relations among the various Moslem leaders were also strained because each hoped to succeed Ma An-liang in the Moslem leadership and the Chinese of the province felt that they were sitting upon high explosives and anxiously watched Chang Kuang-chien's clumsy efforts to ensure peace by playing the various Moslem generals against each other.
He made matters much worse. By heaping honours upon Ma Chi, overlord of the Sining district and the Kokonor, he turned that worthy's head and launched him upon a career of abuse, exactions, and tyranny along the Tibetan border ich brought on a serious Tibetan rising." At the same time he antagonized all the other Mohammedan chiefs and paved the way for anarchy in his province. It was felt on all hands that the only way to ensure permanent peace in the province was to give some one would give him prestige and power mohammedan an official post which
over all the others and make him responsible for their good behaviour, just as the Manchus had done with Ma An-liang.
A Mostem Neepep ron Mostems.
Wuar rae Mancuu Unverstoop.
The situation in Kansu is little understood by the Chinese people at large and is only imperfectly known to the Government. Chang, Kuang-chien has taken care of that. An outline of it at this juncture may not come amiss. For many years the military power of the} province has been in Mohammedan hands. The Chinese soldiery of the province are outnumbered by the} Mohamnedan volunteers and the majority of the prominent military leaders are Moslems.
The Manchus recognized this, The difficulty in the way was the strong anti-Chinese prejudice that exists among the Mohammedans. The Hui-hui" of the old school know nothing of Chinese public affairs, have no regard for Chinese tradition and have been taught by their religious mentors to regard rebellion against Chinese authority under favourable auspices as a sacred obligation. Few of them can read or write Chinese. The one marked exception to this general rule was Ma Fu-hsiang, wno ranks in Kansu as something of a Chinese scholar, who has an en able reputation for fair administra-situation and made the Moslems! tion in Chinese communities, and responsible for the maintenance who has kept in sufficiently close order in the province by appointing touch with military progress Ma An-liang generalissimo of all China to build up, out of the rugged the troops in the northwest. material which Kansu provides, a The old leader was faithful fairly efficient little army. to his trust and not only kept order but rigorously suppressed all factional fights among his ce-religionists. This service in itself was a greater on> than any Chinese official can appreciate, because no Chinese ever takes the pains to understand the sectarian differences which are constantly In the spring of 1919 the Kansu folk were ultranervous. They felt that Chang Kuang-chien, who was farming the province for all it was worth and who was crowding his relatives and fellow provincials into every.office, great and small, was carrying on a system of intrigue in his efforts to split the Moslems into
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.