Speaking seriously, the Mongolian question is perhaps somewhat obscure, at least on first appearance, though "complicated" would probably be the better word for those who know their' China, It Is certainly full of the most Gilbertian situations and absurd inconsistencies.
Suiyuan, for instance, the Pai-Hingmiao Council still maintains a branch' office and its motor trucks are allowed to come and go in perfect freedom, in spite of the strained relations almost verging on open hostility, that exist between it and the local Chinese authorities. Indeed, only a few weeks previously Fu Tso-yi's political police were expelled_from Pailingmiao.
Than again there are actually no tess than three different bodies in existence each of which claims to be Fepresontative of Inner Mongolia: that at Changpel (to which I have referred in a previous article), that at Pailingmlao under Prince Teh, and third recently established in Suiyuan itself under the patronage of consequent intransigeanee has driven the prince out of the Chinese fold.
The new Mongolian Council at Suiyuan they regarded as a mero farce, totally unrepresentative of Mongol opinion. On the other hand, all the Chinese with whom I spoke criticized the prince most bitterly, saying that he had been flirting with the Japanese for a long time and had been taking their money, They fully approved of the way Fu Tso-yi had handled the Mongolian question. The Suiyuan Mongolian Council was the only one worthy of notice, it was a genuine movement with the support of united Mongol opinion behind it, which Prince Teh had never had.
Had this been merely the view of official persons, 1 should not have attached any value {0 it, But it was the unanimous view of all the Chinese merchants I met, who as a class are not usually given to approving the policy or conduct of their official rulers. It is possible, of course, that the interference with trade by the Pallingmiao Council, may have had something to do with their attitude on this question, never~ theless it 1 Impossible to disregard their criticism altogether.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.