-3-
210
afte
entirely surrounding him with his own henchmen, until the
time comes for superseding him by Hu Han-min. His position
is one of great difficulty and the loss by assassination of
his Chief of Staff, Teng K'eng, was a great blow.
(There are
persistent rumours that this assassination is not to be
attributed, as was at one time thought, to the machinations
of Sun, but to those of the Kuangsi party, directed by Yang
Yung-t'ai, who is said to have reappeared in Hongkong.)
Whilst sympathising with the General in his troubles, I
informed Mr. Ku that I could hold out no hope whatsoever of
any negotiations with regard to such a loan being entertained.
He reiterated the danger to which we were anxious and, properly
assisted, able to combat the extremists of the Kuo Min Tang,
who, he said, would ruin not only foreigners, but Chinese also.
(Two more strikes in Canton, one of passenger towboats and one
of cargo boats, are announced for next week and this.) He also
predicted that ere long the "president" would grant a free
pardon to the late head of the Seamen's Union Chen Ping- sheng
under arrest for murdering his wife about a month ago, as he
-
was an indispensable leader of the party, who long before 1911
was engaged in revolutionary activities and propaganda, acting,
under the guise of a seaman, as a distributing agent for
literature and as a smuggler of arms and bomba.
A perusal of the enclosure will show how little pleasing
is the prospect, and the extent to which the extreme, as distinct
from the moderate (under Feng Tzu-yu) section of the Kuo Min Tang,
predominates.
With the exception of the attempt to prevent the sympathetic
strikers from returning their homes, attended as it was by such
distressing results, nothing could have proved more unfortunate
than/
i
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