Peking, April 2.
The strike of the professors is still going on. The professors are no better off now than a fortnight previously, but their strike has produced, indirectly, one solitary result. It has forced the Goverament to realize that if it wants either to eke out a miserable existence or die a lingering death, it must do something definite, and that immediately. For several months past, a number of departments have been kept in arrears and Ministers abroad -have been obliged to tell fibs to foreign bondholders, because the interest on bonds could not be paid at the stipulated periods, yet the Peking Government, in defiance of every principle of sound economy, has created an Aviation Bureau at an annual expenditure of $1,560,000, an Economic Investigation Bureau at $1,440,000 and a Unification Commission at $36,000.
But now the professors' strike has brought things to a head. For the first time in its life the Government is beginning to see that it cannot prolong its existence in this happy-go-lucky way. So a Retrenchment Commission has been formed, composed of the Vice-Ministers, Deputy Chiefs an Councillors of the various Ministries and Boards, who will draw no pay.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.