Sept.
As recently as Friday, the occasion being the Tungchow mutiny and an interview given by General Chang Tso-lin, we had occasion to deal with disbandment proposals, of which there had been much talk in the capital. Since then the Premier, Chin Yun-peng, has come forward with certain definite measures, and these we are d to examine in the hope of finding some tangible prospect of success.. So far, of course, we have merely the general outlines of the schemes, but there are certain features contained therein which are not is factory. For instance the President is to be Generalissimo, and certainly nobody will dispute the principle that the army must be completely under the control and orders of the country's civil executive. No sooner, however, are we agreed on this matter than we are faced with a piece of political expediency in that the Peace Conference will allot the amounts (of troops presumably) necessary for the North and South. If Ghina's army under this new scheme is to differ at all from its present in any respect, what have politicians got to do with the matter of its distribution? That should be the work of the General Staff acting upon the information available to the President and Cabinet, and limited without permission.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.