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if the present corrupt and intriguing gang which the President had gathered around him were dismissed.
4. Finally I warned Mr.Tang of the terrible dangers China was laying herself open to by wasting time in squabbles over comparatively trifling details instead of concentrating her whole energies on financial and administrative reform. If these were not quickly and earnestly undertaken the country would in a short time be bankrupt with results which it was unnecessary for me to enlarge upon to one of Mr.Tang's political intellige me.
R.H.M.
24.8.1913.
Note of conversation with Mr.Wu Ting-Jang at Shanghai
on the 25th instant.
I called on Mr.Wu at his residence and had a short conversation with him.
He expressed generally much the same views as Mr.Tang. He complained that Yuan was carrying things with too high a hand and he feared that he and his advisers, intoxicated with success in suppressing the recent rebellion, would become more and more autocratic in their methods. He said that he had been opposed to the rebellion and deplored it. It was unnecessary and a false political move, the
failure
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