Canton, Apr. 12.
So few soldiers are left as a uomeguard, that the banditti have become emboldened to a point where they have been moving about as military units, capturing section after section of Kuangtung, and Setting up their own local governents, collecting taxes from the populace, The commander-in-chief Cannot be for ever diverting regi ments from the fighting ranks and Sending them to the rear to keep peace thers, and in desperation the Provincial Council has hit upon this makeshift; it will create a home-guard of its own, An inkling of this has got ab-oad, but the news has been dis-{orted badly, Some correspondents have concluded that this militia will come into existence in obedience to the direction of the national governnent, a mistaken notion. For while ju some parts of the country pronelal military forces have been fo ned in accordance with the re~ commendation of the powers that be in Nanking, the financial condition of Kuangtung will not permit of her carrying out such an elaborate scheme at the present moment. the writer said above, the torn of this home guard in the southland a makeshift, and in all probability the guard will be mustered out when warfare comes to an end and the regulars are all back on their home Were this a real provincial guard, many more recruits would have to be found, but Kuangtung has int mind raising only a very small force, 6,000 being the maximum figure." There are to be Your regiments of 1,590 ries each, hut only two of these will be formed forthwith, Arrival of a shipment of 4,000 rifles and 12 machine guns awaited, the order having been given to a German firm, which is Tushing the consignment forward, $600,000 has been appropriated by the Provineinl Council as the initial cost of raising and equiping the home guard.
But it will not be possible to make all arrangements in a jiffy, so it need not be expected that banditry is going to be put down in short der, The Provincial Council has set a limit of five months for the Duilding up of her defensive force; it will take fully that long to get it in working orde has been decided not to} open a commander-in-chiot's office, The Civil Provincial Head, General Chen Ming-chu will concurrently be the supreme commander of the Provincial Guard. This office General Chen will gladly take up, for the Guard has been his pet idea, and owes {ts inception largely to the strenuous efforts put forth by him to win over others in the government who had not at first been enthusiastic sponsors of the scheme, Great care is to be exercised in selecting even the common men of Every county is to be find a few reliable the larger districts will end 20, the smaller 15, recruits to Canton, and in the' provincial capital' they will be trained for their special task. When the Home Guard has become proficient in mandeuvers in the field, then General Chen Ming-chu will be ready answer any call from a distri Magistrate whose own constabulary is unable to keep down lawlessness Within the confines of its little domain. The Guards will be shifted About from place to place, going wherever for the moment they are most badly needed.
Were this force functioning today, the driving out of the communist-bandit bands that are harass sing the northern end of Kuangtung would bea simple task. As it is, although some soldiers have been sent up to the town at the end of the southern section of the Canton-Hankow Railroad, Shiukuan, they fare not enough. Their commander docs not dare to march his troops far away from the railhead, and despite all the reports to the ce trary, Nanyung, near he Kiangsi order, is still under the dominion of Chu Teh and his underlings, True, the Reds have "given up" Nanyung, but this means only that they have moved beyond the outskirts of the town to better guard the approaches to it,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.