With the spring coming on and} the war season about to open it was high time that the coalition set about doing something along the promised line of Wu Pei-fu's elimin nation. While the coalition has been losing its cohesive power through the winter months General Wu has not been waiting quietly to be eliminated. He has extended his influence pretty well through the Yangtze and the south. apart from anticipating Dr. Sun's doings in Kuangtung, he is now keeping Szechuan busy and has come close enough to the Tuchuns of Kiangsu and Chekiang to put a heavy damper upon their enthusiasm for the elimination business. It therefore looked to the members of the present Cabinet about a week ago as though the raison d'etre of the coalition which they prided themselves upon representing had almost ceased to exist since Tsao Kun now takes so little interest in the pre sidency, and as though the outlook! for the elimination of Wu Pei-fu would not be very bright this spring even if common hostility to the commander of the 3rd Division! proved to be a sufficiently strong bond to hold the various factions; together. If the Cabinet did not} represent the coalition it certainly represented nothing and might really find itself in a precarious position if} Wu Pei-fu were suddenly to turn his attention to the North again. It was therefore essential that Peking should find out whom it did really represent and what this represen tion was worth in actual power. The resignation was therefore a sort of referendum, not to the country of course, but to the group leaders. It was a roll call and had it not met! with the right sort of response might have been described as a call to arms.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.