June 1.
OvR Canton correspondent! sends to-day an account of the recent meeting of the Kuomintang Central Executive Committee; of the measures taken by, General Chiang Kai-shek to purge the party of Communism; and of others he took to break, up a labour meeting on the 15th. All of which is taken as meaning, that General Chiang Kai-shek, has definitely declared himself, against the Reds. We confess we are not impressed by the logic of this conclusion. We are quite ready to believe that General!
Chiang has declared himself against one sort of Reds and one brand of Communism. He happened to find it inconvenient to allow the labourers to demonstrate on May 15; end he is astute enough to realize, as many others are too, that the Kuomintang would gain great unpopularity by allowing itself to be tarred with the brush of Moscow doctrines, against which there is a violent reaction among all Chinese. But what's in a name?
The grandiose eight resolutions introduced by General Chiang land adopted by the Kuomintang C.F. C. make not the faintest difference to the realities of the [situation in Canton: which are, that the Strike Committe rule the roast and no one dares say them nay.
Only yesterday we received a visit from a gentleman just come from Canton, where he has lived for a number of years, and he expressed very grave concern] lover the way things are going, exactly indeed on the lines of what has recently been written in these columns on the growth of anti-foreignism and _anti-Americanism in particular in the Strike Committee. Encouraged the success of their attacks fon mission and educational property and by the entire absence lof any attempt to check them or exact reparation, the strike pic-ets are developing an arrogance land temper beyond anything even they have shown. And our in formant says there is a general feeling that yet wilder excesses fare in store, that no one can tell to what lengths the strikers will go and that serious loss of life Jand insults to foreign flags may happen any day. We think it not at all improbable. There is only one way of dealing with people like the Strike Committee, land they will go on from outrage to outrage so long a3 that way is not taken. Meanwhile our informant thinks that General Chiang pursues whatever policy towards the Reds from day to day suits him best: sometimes he [seems to be for repressing them, sometimes for letting them have their way. 'This surmise may or may not be right. But the out-fanding fact is that General Chiang must know perfectly well what the effect is on Canton' reputation of the Strike Committee's doings and of the nasty odour which they cause in the nostrils of civilized people This being so we only have ask, Can't he suppress them or won't he? Either way he does not cut a very noble figure and his eight resolutions to the Kuomintang are seen for exactly] what they are worth.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.