Peking, Mar. 6.
So far as fundamentals go the political situation in the North has not charged materially since Chang Tso-lin came to Peking several months ago to form his coalition Cabinet, a Government designed to represent a league of all factions except the immediate following of Wu Pei-fu, and also to alienate from Wu some of the less reliable members of his nominal entourage like Chao Ti and to eliminate some of his weaker allies, such as Tien Chung-vii, Governor of Shantung. Chang Tso-lin's plans have remained essentially unchanged and the alliances which he was then forming are more closely cemented. if anything, than before, but there have been diversions, really superficial, but sufficient to divert public attention from the major political tendencies. Wu Pei-fu's telegraphic assaults have been much less an obstacle to the fruition of Chang Tso-lin's plans than the panicky efforts of the President to play both ends against the middle, and his subsequent terrorized efforts to regain the confidence and support of the obviously bigger party, Chang Tso-lin's coalition.
These diversions, while tempora arily annoying to Chang Tso-lin and his colleagues, have served to strengthen their position and bring them allies who would otherwise have been very doubtful, while they have put the President. completely outside the scope of their consideration.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.