Peking, Dec. 15.
According to the Chinese press the Foreign Office has informed the Legations that Dr. Sun Yat-sen is trying to borrow money with the surplus earnings of the Kuang-Chin (Canton-Kowloon) Railway and with some sort of an undefined ''goods tax'"' as security. The Foreign Office is supposed to have asked the Legations to prevent their nationals from humour ing Dr. Sun. At this writing the Legations say they have heard nothing of this from the Foreign Office.
Whatever the goods tax offered may be, the proposal to hypothecate the surplus earnings of the Canton-Kowloon railway is absurd in view of the present condition of the railway, which earning nothing. Thanks to Dr. Sun and his troops, the line has been practically out of commission for nine months. The soldiers have ruined such a great portion of the rolling stock that all traffic would have been suspended long ago if the British section of the line had not lent to the Chinese section much of its own rolling stock. The Chinese have not more than two or three locomotives in running order, the others having been disabled for the most part in wrecks under the military direction of trafic. When a unit of the brave constitutionalist army decides to travel by rail the fact that an express is coming up_ the line and that there is no siding and no way of stopping the other train does not deter that unit from setting out. Accidents traceable to military interference and to indifference to traffic regulations have average ed two or three a month for many months past and unless order is restored in Kuangtung shortly, the railway fromthe Kowloon Chinese i ton will be nothing but a streak of rust in another year.
Under such conditions it is obvious that what little through traffic there is on the line must be run_at an increasing loss and that when peace is restored the Chinese Government will have to expend huge sums for repairs and for the purchase of new rolling stock. Since the Chinese sec-tron of the line under present conditions is of little er no service to commerce nor ta reputable travellers, nor to anyone indeed but Dr. Sun's uniformed bandits, it has. been seriously suggested that a stop be put to all this nonsense by withholding all British cars and Iccomotives and by operating British trains over the 22-mile section in leased territory only. The military could then yumuse themselves with the rubbish left them on the Chinese section, which would not last them long, and then, with the restoration of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.