An advance into Honan. under such circumstances, even if there were not the slightest danger of attack from Shansi, might force Feng's retreat into Shensi,. enable Yen Hsi-shan to declare himself for Fengtien and pave the way for the Kuominchun's final elimination in the north-west; but' it would ministrative problems Fengtien is not yet prepared to face. The first would be the replacing of Chu Vu-pu a yeth military commander and civil administrator and the second would be the pacification of Honan. The second problem could not be thought fof until the first had been solved and, the government of Honan is itself a problem to the solution of which no one here aspires. Obviously Feng Vu-hsiang has found it too much for him.
The province is completely demoralized, like Shensi, by years of civil war and maladministration and is the prey of as many military adventurers as Szechuan, Feng holds the strategic centres on the railways with his own little army grouped compactly about them. Just as the Fengtien troops hold the important towns on the upper half of the Kin-Han line, and leaves the rest to the adventurers who are content for the moment, in exchange for supplies, to call themselves subordinates. Anyone with ready exch could go into Honan and buy away from Feng 100,000 armed mon in a fow weeks, and he would then Ihave on his hands the most ruthless and disloyal rabble in North China, One of Peking's troubles is that it alrendy has too much of such material of its own. If Feng wer driven out of Honan and. thes rapacious and worthless enters" were not taken over by the conqueror, the latter would have to center upon a campaign of deliberate extermination before he could move any further' or consider giving Honan "a civil government. The thought of assuming this responsibility, with Chihli still under Chu Vu-pu, acts as a powerful sedative of the Fengtien fidgeting to come {nto direct contact with Feng Yu-
Apart. from all other considerations, they do want Shansi back in the fold and it is clearly understood hero now that Yen Hai-shan cannot openly realign himself with Peking, in his present exhausted condition, until Feng Vu-hsiang has been ripped by someone, Obviously complete reorganization in Chibli and Shantung is a primary essential to a direct descent upon Honan and tthore is no use thinking of this until Chang Chung-chang trid Cha Ya-pu, with all their dependents and parasites, have been removed from control of troops and reveni Wo have seemed to be on the eve of such a swooping reform every month or so for the past eighteen months; and there have been times those closest to Change Ts0- predicted with confidence that the change would come within fow days or a few weeks at until Iatterly nothing at_all thas been said of the malter. The disappointed public seems to think that it is an' abandoned project—this drastic reorganization that was to have come with the winter Full the fighting
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.