The natural thing would be for the activities of the Arsenal to be Timited by the dismantling of machinery and the adaptation of the plant to commercial purposes, and the Wu-Han Political Council would like to put such a scheme through. In fact it has passed a resolution that this is to be done.
But at this point its difficulties begin, For on the one hand there are a good many military officials who do not want to see the supply of munitions lessened lest the unpreparedness of the Wu-Han troops should invite aggressive action by rivals. And on the other hand the mechanics who are out of work in hundreds have no wish to see the large plant at Hanyang competing with other firms for the limited amount of engineering work now being done. There is no doubt that there is bitter opposition on the part of the civilian Labour inions to what may be called the soldier labour—pol Nationalist Government, When one remembers recent messages about the Shaforce men who hai not been absorbed back ranks of the employed in Britiany one wonders how the Nationalist Government, manned as it is by men of little practical experience, is going to carry through its demobilization schemes without creating serious unrest.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.