The pessimists here proclaim loudly that the Red are. in. the Yangtze to stay. The optimists have many arguments for insisting that Will not last long. One is that they ae spreading themselves too much and taking in alien elements too fast, 20 that with a single severe defeat on any one front, their alien allies will desert them and they Wil collapse Tike the Kuominchun. The argument that makes mos: appeal, however, is that Wuchang not only holds out obstinately gots more uppish in its rejection of favourable terms every day. Wu: chang hag a big wireless. station and is "undoubtedly in. touch all the northern leaders, and must therefore be getting acceptable assurances of relief "from some quarter. At this writing it is believed locally that Sun Chuan-fang making his biggest drive across country from Wusueh towards the Hokuang railway south of Yocho 40 it is supposed that Wuchang. is waiting for the success of this movement to force a Cantonese withdrawal. Colour is lent to. this supposition by the fact that large bodies of the Cantonese and Hunarese troops are being withdrawn from the Kin-Han railway, _presumably to reinforce some' thard Pressad front. Of such theories the! reader. can make what he Bkes, There is no use trying to form an opinion on such shadowy information. do with the Cantonese movement, but that the southerers are Yuan Tsu-ming's Kueichow bandits who, when driven out of Szechuan, tov refuge in western Hunan.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.