The only existing reason for the provincial recognition of provincial appointments and concessions sold in Peking ig the hope among the provincial chiefs that Peking will again contrive to borrow money in large sums and can. again be blackmailed for a share of the loot. If anything were to happen to shatter this hope, Peking's appointments in the provinces would not be yerth a counterfeit copper, "patronage" in the Capital would dwindle to local proportions and Ministers of State would dabble like police sergeants in petty municipal graft. So long, however, as petty local taxes, such as the Octroi, the Stamp Tax, the Wine and Tobacco Tax and the like, continue to dribble in and the persons who sit in the various ministries still contrive to cajole Powers into believing that they constitute a Government of China, so long will this Governmental make believe drag painfully on and so long will the clique which happens to be quartered here have sufficient "face" with the provinces to elicit nominal recognition from a few of them and to keep the ministries open through patronage!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.