CO129-482 - Public Offices - 1923 — Page 390

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REPUBLIC OF CHINA

GENERALISSIMO'S HEADQUARTERS

Manifesto To Foreign Powers.

The Chinese people have suffered long and heavily under the burden of militarism which has brought in its train civil war, disunion, and anarchy. The recent deplorable bandit outrage on one of the trunk railways, though startling to the outside world, is, to the long- suffering Chinese people, but another incident of innumerable similar happenings in places ittle known, another count in their indictment against their oppressors. When it is pointed out that within a radius of one hundred miles of Lincheng, adjoin the territories of five provinces under the military jurisdiction of the most prominent and powerful Militarists of the North whose soldiery number officially half a million, it will be realised what the extent of the evil and the futility of militarism is. When the events transpiring in Peking during the last twelve months, to take a no longer period, are recollected, during which time a so-called president has been pushed into office and dragged out of it, and a bewildering number of premiers and cabi- hets have besu set up and pulled down, all solely at the pleasure of the Militarists to gain their ow ambitions, it will be realised what the extent of the unruliness and the fickleness of the Militarists is. The Chinese people have in no uncertain voice time and again repudiated the claim of such mea to be their rulers and have longed for the blessings of peace and unity in the land.

Conscious of the sentiment of the country and convinced that the urgent needs of China are the disbandment of superfluous soldiery and the establishment of a united and efficient government, I last year suggested a meeting of the principal political and military parties in conference having for its agenda the disbandment of troops throughout the country by general agreement and the subsequent employment of the men in productive works of.. pablic utility, the establishment of a central government which should receive the support of all the provinces and perform the functions and discharge the duties of an enlightened, pro-

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