Jan, 30. the hardest for the Kuomintang and have been the most badly treated, these Communists constitute a menace until they are exterminated. General Chiang Kai-shek is risking much in encouraging them to attack the Kuangsi group, for these Communist troops will not stop at Swatow. Given a seaport, they become a terrific instrumentality The fighting in west China continues classically to repeat the tales of the change of con-rol of small areas, the retreat of defeated troops, only again to take up their fighting else-Awhere and to bargain their allegiances, mutinies engineered by officers, the everlasting small politics and for the people of China endless throughout the winter as they have suffered during the summer. The purport of this new war can be told with the utmost brevity: General Pei Chung-hsi and General Chen Chien and other generals of the Kuangsi-Hunan group, wearying of the politics of General Chiang Kaishek and disillusioned as to the character of the Kuomintang, have determined to map out for themselves a four-province Kingdom, consisting of Kuangtung, Kuangsi, "Hunan and Hupeh, They held Kuangsi and Hupeh, but in Kuangtung they were faced by the Communist armies in the East River areas, and in Hunan they were faced by the former troops of General Tang Song-chi, 'There can be no doubt whatsoever that General Chang Fa-knet Kuangtung and General Ho Chien in' Hunan being supported by General Chiang i-shek to oppose and attack
fuangsi_ and Hunan troops, destroy, if possible, the whose part, incidentally, in the Nationalist advance from Canton to the Yangtze, was second to none, To all appearances, General Pei Chung-hsi has met with some success in Hunan, his troops having entered the capit~ al of the province, Changsha, The defeated Hunanese are taking, by all accounts, for Kuangtung, there to harass Gonoral Pei's associate, General Li Chi-sen, who now holds Canton, The subordinate of General Chen Chien, General Yeh Kai-hein, who had once been a traitor to Marshal Sun Chuanfang, staged a mutiny in the interests of Nanking, but he witorly taited and is now in unknown parts, probably on a steamer down-river or perhaps in some hills planning another war. If General Poi Chung-hsi manages to consolidate the authority of his group in Hunan, he will put General Chen Chien, 2 Hunanese, at the head government of Hunan, thus bowing to that province's insistence upon provincial aut-anomy, but he will be assured 1 passage through the province whenever he wants to go home, that is, whenever the inevitable split between Nanking and Hankow is publicly proclaimed in vitriolic resolutions. In the East River district of Kuangtung, From the north comes the news of imported arms and the access to authority of the ni defeatable Marshal Sun Chuanfang, who suffered his army to be wiped out at Lungtan only to rise again to fight to a finish. The north now acknowledges that he alone is a warrior amongst them and they heap suffering} upon him honours and authority. Marshal Chang Tso-lin presents him with millions, and from Europe come vessels with arms and munitions, Marshal Sun Chuan-fang is now entrusted with the task of fighting, not Nanking, for that no longer is 80 dangerous, but the Christian general, Feng Vu-hsiang, who always' starts when everyone else is exhausted and thieves a victory from his erstwhile allies, His tactic are now known and his lines are being watched. In the quarrel between Nanking and Hankow, he has not played the role of the peace-maker, but it was he who instigated General Chiang Kai-shek to flout the Kuangsi group, whereas he might have advised moderation and peace. He demanded and insisted that General Chiang Kai-shek should be commander-in-chief of the armies, when he knew that most of the commanders wanted no chief, and now that Nanking is faced with the when the few constructive minds remaining in the Kuomintang are breaking body and soul to prevent war among the principal Kuomintang commanders, he prepares" to occupy Peking in his own name, the victor of three years of warfare in which he has played the role of % runaway, an intriguer, and now a usurper of victories. Againat him is pitted little more than the strength of Marshal Sun Chuan-fang, for both Generals. Chang Chung-chang and Chang Hsueh-liang have apparently lost the art of war. Such things happen to Chinese generals in defeat Then there is Governor Yen Hsi-shan of Shansi, He is not defeated, but he has not been victorious. His polities have been stupid; his military force which he had been training for fifteen years or more, has proved inadequate for great things; but he has retained his province and he has his money, and he is still a factor. Of him it is now being said that if the alternative 1s giving Shansi to Mukden or to the Christian General, he will think well enough of the people of his native prpvinee to keep Feng Vu-hsiang out. But that is all uncertainty.
There seems to be no all this northern fighting, as there is little spirit in the south. there is, fighting, and reports are conflicting. The Communists have not been able to occupy Swatow, but neither have they been driven out of the province. They are associating with bandit groups on the Kuangtung-Fukien border, probably with the levies of the old Hakka general, Chen Chiung-ming. They have somewhere in the neighbourhood $2,500,000, loot from the December massacres in Canton,
fan's Land, they now inhabit, thay, cance spend in the Perhaps, it is the winter snows and utter physical and spiritual exhaustion which comes at the end of a year, but no optimistic voice of unity and no high hopes for the immediate future are expressed anywhere. A year ago, the Nationalist armies were in Hankow; Mr. Eugene Chen was dictating vast missives of brilliant dialectic to the universe; Comrade Borodin was the inspiration of a.world revolution out of the Yangtze Valley. To-day, one only deals with nouncements on the future by the erstwhile buoyant Kuomintang leaders. Upon what rock has all the glory of a year ago been broken? We have been accustomed to blame it all upon Communism and the Communists, but we might seek for them perhaps an even mote active partner in destructiveness—the militarist who seeks only to lead soldiers to battle that he might further tax the people to pay for more battles, the militarist who whisks about in these futile, stupid, endless wars like a rabbit! in a cage, like the beggar's blind white mice.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.