CO129-464 - Public Offices - 1920 — Page 466

CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案 All

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The actual operations of the soldiery are confined to the routine of looting of the countryside, and as a rule the customary forty-eight hours elapse between the retire- ment of one force from a town and its occupation by the conquering troops.

Such is, briefly, the existing state of affairs in the North. In the South it is much the same story. The so-called Military Government is now thoroughly discredited and divided against itself; on the military side there are two distinct partie much as in the North, headed respectively by Lu Yang Ting, Inspector of the Two Kuangs, and Tang Latest news from. Canton is to the effect Chi Yao, the Military Governor of Yunnan. that trouble between the Yunnan and Kuangsi factions is becoming acute.

The situation is the less easy to follow through the fact that Lu Tung Ting is in negotiation with President Hsü, whilst Tang Chi Yao is in communication with Tuan Chi Jui.

The rival parties in North and South respectively thus show some signs of coming to terms, no doubt with a view of overthrowing their opponents,

Your Lordship may well be little interested in this maze of Chinese politics and intrigue, but I have thought it advisable to summarise them thus briefly, as some comprehension of the tendencies at work helps to demonstrate the artificial difference which now separate North and South. The country originally split over a constitutional Some few issue; that phase bas long since passed from the practical point of view. political idealists remain in the South, such as Dr. Wu Ting Fang, C. C. Wu, C. T. Wang, &c., but to all intents and purposes it has now resolved itself into a simple question of the apportionment of the spoils between the military cliques that now dominate China in North and South. The satraps of the North are equally lacking with those of the South in any desire for popular Government, which spells their own dissolution; they are equally determined in both sections of the country to win and hold supreme power. It has become, in fact, a pure question of political loot, and patriotism plays no part whatever in the programme.

From the broader point of view it is a matter of no moment whatever whether the reins of Government are in the hands of the Northern or of the Southern militarista. The solution of China's problema must always remain the same, namely, the elimination of the military clique and the restoration of government to the properly elected representatives of the people. And I observe a growing impression that perhaps sooner than is generally anticipated there will be yet another social upheaval marking yet one Chinese observers of experience and judgment more stage in China's development. declare that there is a marked similarity between the state of mind now prevailing and that which existed on the eve of the revolution of 1911 that drove the Manchus from Fower.

(Copies to Tokyo, Hong Kong and Admiral.)

I have, &c.

M. W. LAMPSON,

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1920

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