י.
1
4.
in the hands of local Chinese officials as proposed by us. You think that this will
(1) lead to local civil wars; but is not
this a lesser evil than the large scale civil wars which, being a scramble for the capital as the result of the in- creased revenues flowing to Peking, may be directly attributable to the action of the powers?
(2) destroy the customs administration,
promote disintegration and encourage Bolshevism; but does not this argument take insufficient account of Canton where forcible exercise of control has intensified rather than averted these
very dangers? Attacks on the customs administration are of course a possibi.. lity in the future whatever course we adopt now, but is not the danger much greater under the policy which you advocate? Disintegration is also a possibility but can we prevent it? If we attempt to prevent it may we not be impeding a natural evolution towards a federal system? As for Bolshevism you give no convincing reasons for the view that our policy may encourage it. dissolve the whole structure of Chinese
centralisation .....
(3)
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