4.
(d) The power of the sword in the Kuang-ung Pro- vince rests apparently with General Cheung Kai-
shek, concerning whom I know very little. He has
for several weeks been away from Canton; and he is now, I believe, at Swatow. I do not know whether
he is loyal to it. Wong Tsing-wai and the Canton
if Council of Government. If he is not, and he is
really under Russian Bolshevik influence, he may
perhaps by force of arms make himself dictator at Canton, divert to his own war-chest any
payment made by the Hongkong merchants to the
Canton Strike Committee and continue the boycott.
I do not myself consider this contingency at
#
all likely, but it is not beyond the realm of
possibility.
then
Is there any means of ending the
boycott without paying blackmail to the Strike
Committee? I confess that the only means that
7
I can see would be the use of armed force, military
or naval. In my last despatch I explained that I
saw little chance of the overthrow of the present
nominal Government of Canton in the near future
either by the Chinese Navy or by any Chinese General from another Province. It is not to be expected that
any European Powers will attack Canton for the
purpose of ending a boycott from which some of
them actually derive commercial advantage and from which none of them suffer as acutely as Great Britain. While, as regards the employment of British naval and military force to end the boycott, I am firmly of the opinion that whatever temporary relief
+
might be obtained in Canton, Hongkong and Swatow, from such action would bery soon be lost in consequence
of
30
of