Nov. 22.
Complaint is often made by the Chinese that foreigners pay too much attention to difference: arising within the Kuomintang. Rut, they can hardly be blaned for doing so when they fird General Feng, Vu-hsiang and General Chiang Kai-shek speaking in the strain reported in yesterday's paper. "Since the death of the Party's Leader, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, we have not had of perfect accord ty," paid General Northern Expedition; now the branch councils of the Kuomintang turn against the Central Executive Committee, and the more they are exhorted to obey, the more contumacious they prove. They even go so far as to slander some members of the Central Committee personally. "If this i3 tolerated, how can the authority and integrity of the Central Executive Committee be upheld?" It did not appa ently occur to General Chiang that, in the eyes of the branch councils, the C. E. C.'may not be worth upholding, They ai brought into direct contact with actual conditions throughout the country; they contrast the wretched atate of the average Chinese with Nanking's conspicuous failure to cope with it or to give any evidence of practical work. How, they may ask, ehall they not speak out?
General Feng struck a less personal note, He said simply that "the cause of our political unrest during the past teen years has been the struggle among. individuals called lend against one ano selfish ends." The results are set out in striking passages, eneroachments from without, uprisings within, A nation of four hundred millions "can hardly resist the bullying of a nation with only a few scores of mil-Mons. These national humiliations confront us. They are not easy to solve." " Then, within the country, the Communists plot incessantly: "they are trying to poison the minds of our people with their fallacious doctrines." And passing to a favourite topic, General Feng showed how the conduct of Nationalist officials plays into the Communists' hands. Life has become complicated, pretentious and extravagant. No matter what an official's rank may be, he must practise thrift and simplicity. Let his wife do her own marketing and cooking. Do not copy the ways of the old mandarins with their retinues of servants, their helplessness and hopelessness, "Avoid these rot~ ten habits." In this respect at Jeast the General practises what he preached: the disreputable old Panama hat, the common uniform, the rough diet, if these things are a pose, it is one that has been kept up stead a good many years, the purpose of which can hardly be questioned. There are points in the speech that could easily be answered, assumptions with another side obviously to be put, moral reprobations, in respect of the Communists, of which the past might give' a different account. The speech is to be Judged not by past standards or present partiality, in which Roose venT
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.