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if so well-informed a person as Mr. Stephen could have
thought what he did think, what must have been the general
public opinion in Hongkong and Canton? I think it must
have been that commercial circles in both cities, including
ioreigners, did support the Mercant Volunteer movement,
and that this movement would be favourable to Chen Chiung-
ming. So I cannot find that Commander Faure's statement
is so unwarrantable as Mr. Hallifax suggests. Nor does
it seem to me, on the face of it, improbable that the
Merchant Volunteers recruited their "soldiers" from
among the bandit and pirate classes, nor yet that these
"soldiers" were transported in launches flying the British
flag (especially after recent revelations regarding
smuggling under the British flag by launches owned by
purely Chinese firms).
It seems to me, therefore, that Commander Faure's
inaccuracies (and he himself has explained that he had
not time to give the memorandum the revision he would
have liked) have not been very lucidly exposed by his
critics, that (as they themselves admit) his main facts
are accurate, and that therefore it is illogical and
unfair to suggest (merely because his statement
is/