Crime Said To Have Been Instigated in Hangchow: Bribe of $40,000: Predicament of Peking Government: Panic Stricken Officials: Criticism of Foreign Concessions "By Rodney Gilbert.
Peking, Nov. 27.
General Hsu Kuoliang's assassination is exciting considerable interest in Peking since the Chihli party's agents in the South have been sending in reports in which they claim: to thave evidence of the inspiration te-hind the Anhui schoolmaster's crime, For several days the Chinese papers thave been hinting that ''a large sum was paid by the military administration of a certain province" for the shooting. The local {political leaders are now more explicit however. They go og far as to say' quite openly that the crime was instigated in Hangchow and that the sum of $40,000 was diiviued between several prospective as-sasins among whom was the actual murderer. Of this ihey say they can produce. complete evidence, Several features of this affair are causing some worry. If the evidence is as good as it is suid to be a rapprochement between the Peking Government and the Chekiang provincial government will not be so easy. It is naively explained here that the death of General Hsu does not in itself involve such a great loss to any political faction but that the desperate ill-will which prompted the crime cannot be ignored ani is bound to have an effect upon future negotiations. The misunderstanding between General Chi Hsieh-yuan on the one hand and Generals Ho Feng-ling and Lu Yung-hsiang on the other about the appointment of a successor naturally does not improve the chances of a good tempered compromise. Besides all this, every official who now believes that the sipoting ba General Hsu Kuo-cherishes a profound anaes long was planned in Hangchow against the Chekiang authorities for reviving the dead tradition of political assassination. Each office holder now thinks in his own mind that any one of them may %e the next and looks upon the shooting as a personal threat against his own person.
Another outcome of the crime has been an official adoption of the common Chinese criticism of the concessions and settlements as refuges and bases for officid! criminals. It is decidedly illogical for the Chihli pobiticians to insist in one breath that, the shooting of General Hsu was planned by military leaders in Hangchow and to hold the foreign settlement in Shanghai responsible for. it in the next, but ting they are doing; and it must be understood that the shooting has given rise to sufficient panic in the official mind to erase all consideration for logic It seems even to have overcome the usual official consideration for future safety. As the writer pointed out in a previous article Chinese officialdom is always content to have the young chauvinists use the common abuse of the foreign concessions by criminal officials and ex-officials as an argument against foreign sovereign control, but loth to join in the outery because each official in office looks forward to the possibility of taking refuge under some foreign flag in China himself when his own sins have found him out. The fright occasioned "y General Hsu's killing has, however, overcome consideration for the future to sub an extent that even Peking is echoing the nationalistic wail that China can never be at peace while crime and conspiracy are fostered under foreign protection; and unless the present panic is immediately allayed the Diplomatic Body will certainly heaat something about it. This is an magical and somewhat amusing development but withal a wholesome one.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.