A storm of protest has also come from local merchants and Sankers. In lengthy telegrams to! the National Government, they demand that immediate steps shall be taken to prevent the northern militarists from seizing any of the Customs revenues so as to ensure repayment of the foreign and domestic loans. lost interesting of sage which has to Nanking by the Shanghai Chinese Bankers Asso-elution and the Native Bankers wild of Shanghai, says, inter alia:
Peking, May 8, According to a reliable report, reo pretentatives of those factions of the Kuomintang which are fied with the present king: Covernment regime hay held a joint conference at Tientsin and have drawn up a number of important resolutions regarding the party and state affairs, They resolved amongst other things to adjust various party affairs by convening a Third National Congress of the Party and also to ad-Just questions concerning affairs of state by calling a National As-
In addition to these, the _anti-Nanking Kuomintang leaders decided upon the drawing up of a Nation al Constitution at the earliest poss ible moment.
In this connection, it is said that Mr. Wang Ching-wei, sent a message to the conference, approving the resolutions drawn up at the conference, and stating that he also sent a festo on Wednesday to the anti-'Nanking group, announcing his own attitude regarding the situation. is believed that the Tientsin Conference group will organize a sort of political secretariat after they have received sympathetic formal osages from Generals Yen "We read in both the foreign and Chinese press that the northern [militarists are sei the Tientsin hare of the Customs revenues This has caused much consternation locally. Although it is report-ad that the former five per cent, Customs dues will not be touched 30 as to ensure the safety of the turds earmarked as security for foreign loans, it will be seen that the unification of the Chinese Customs' Service is again being violated and that a very bad precedent is being set which, as in the case of the salt revenues, wil! greatly affect the confidence te-hosed by foreigners in the Chinese. financial authorities and which doubtless will prove to be a big! obstacle to China's tariff autonomy and the efforts to secure the abolition of the unequal treaties. This causes us worry so far as foreign loans are concerned.
"Since 1911, domestic loans. amounting to millions of dollars Fave been subscribed to by. the People. The reason for the raising of such a huge sum of money for domestic loans was the belief that the sinking funds were independent and outside the sphere of the militarists and politicians and free from party conflicts. The independence of these been upset, will naturally be affected to a con-iderable extent. The people's economical condition, therefore, is the second point which causes' us 1a is far behind other coun-lowing the convening of a political conference to be called by the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.