'A study of the map will reveal the precarious situation of an irreconcilable Shansi province in the event of the consummation of these plans, either by a short cut or a circuitous route. Governor Yen Hsi-shan is even now hemmed in from the north, the northeast, the northwest, and the south. Marshal Feng's tax collectors are even now penetrating below the Suiyuan. ive border, and causing Defence Commissioner to appeal to Taiyuanfu for instructions. Shansi militarists who have been squeezed out of the province are even now creating trouble jon the Honan-Shansi border, and are, I am given to understand, one of the causes of the present" apprehension of the outbreak of hostilities on the Honan-Shensi border, another being the need for some new field of operations for the militarists who are competing for the privilege of battening op Honan.
Now it would be a damnable indictment of militarism, and would affect China in the eyes of the world enormously, if Yen Hsi-shan were ito be ousted from his office in Shansi province. He has held the appointment since the Revolution, foutliving all his contemporaries in office by many years. His great claim to recognition is that by some stratagem or other he has been able to save the Shansi people from the horrors of war. As a result, his Province thrives, while others stagnate under the shadow of continued military disruption. He has set the example of encouragement to all manner of constructive enterprises, and although he does not get much thanks from the natives for it, has increased the wealth of Shansi many times.
The Model Governor Foreigners thave hailed him as the "model governor," and his province as "the model' province." If he has to go, and if his province is given over to the depredations of a gang of unscrupulous tarists, all using the resources of the area for their own selfish ends, then the reaction against the man who instigated the crime (for it would be a crime to see Shansi degenerate ito another Honan), would be severe. For that reason, it is difficult to believe that Feng Vu-hsiang contemplates an immediate descent on Shansi, with or ce-operation of the as is feared in poli He has not_yet ireless in Peking. lived down his betrayal of Wu Pei not his coup against the Manchu and is not likely to add a third reason for the antipathy of his fellow. countrymen.
So, serious observers do not see the end of Yen Hsi-shan's reign yet. What they do foresee is a successful attempt sooner or later to force power in the to its eventual subjugation by Feng Yo-hsiang. Since 1917 Yen Hsi-shan has ruled Shansi without the help of a Civil Governor. The time has come, say: the Kuominchun spokesmen, when Yen's sway should be challenged, when be should be compelled to adhere to a practice of dual control which is general throughout the country. That is Frobably the idea behind the rumours of Hsieh Tu-pi's impending appointment to Taiyuanfu,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.