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area of Kuang-tung is 100,000 square miles with a population estimated in 1922 to be 37,167,700 souls. The area of Kuang-hsi is 77,220 square miles with a population estimated in 1922 to be 12,258,300 soula In other words, Kuang-tung is somewhat smaller than Italy with a rather larger population, while Kuang-hai is a little bigger than Bulgaria with a population almost equal to that of Egypt. When Kuang-tung and Kuang-hsi were merely two of the Eighteen Provinces of China Proper, their size and importance were dwarfed in men's imagination by the immensity of the Manchu Empire as a whole. But it is eszential to bear constantly in mind the fact that the Liang Kuang provinces are in themselves a very spacious region, Inhabited by teeming millions of a thrifty, industrious and enterprising people, differing markedly from that of central and northern China: nor can any one doubt that the fortunes of Hong Kong must always be affected, and deeply affected, by the course of events in Kuang- tung and Kuang-hsi.
3.
It seems quite clear, however, from the facts set out in the attached memorandum that since September, 1911, Canton has never been under the effective government of Peking except during the short period from August, 1913, to March, 1916, when General
Lung Taai-kwong ruled there as nominee of President Yuan Shih-k'ai. During the rest of the period the successive ephemeral governments in the Kuang-tung province were practically independent of Paking and
often
*
Whitaker's Almanack for 1922 (page 114) gives the area of Italy as 120,000 square miles with a population of 35,200,000: the area of Bulgaria as 71,450 square miles and the population of Egypt as 12,600,000.