Mar. 6.
"Tax reception given to Dr. Sun Yat-sen at Hongkong has slightly staggered those who were loud in declaring that he ought to be turned out of Shanghai. He was entertained to lunch at Government House, to tea at the Hongkong Shanghai Bank, and no one seems even to have hinted that the speech he delivered to the University students should first be submitted to the authorities. But in all this Hongkong seems tu have known very well what it was doing. Traditionally its relationships with Canton have been of a friendly nature, and however much opinions may differ about Dr. Sun Yat-sen's political ideas, there can be no earthly question that he possesses more influence in South China than any man living. If anybody can save Canton from the Yunnan and Kuangsi freebooters, it is Dr. Sun; and if he does that his authority among the Cantonese will be boundless. In the second place Hongkong probably wished to indicate to the Chinese of the south not less than to Dr. Sun himself that the episode of the strike of @ year ago is forgotten, or at least remembered only as an economic, not a political struggle. And lastly, Hongkong may have wished to hold out the olive branch as representative of the British Government and _people,, whom Dr. Sun has recently be-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.