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have not, with the exception of cigarette tax ingle which is a special case, attempted to repudiate treaties or failed to recomize Ching's forel obligations, and 11 a dispute arises in the area under their control in regard to interpretation of foreign rights under trenties which cannot be arranged locally, they refer it as a matter of course to Peking to be discussed by Ministry of soreign Affairs with Legations concerned.
Leaving aside Bolshevik domination in Canton and some other places there is no question bo-day of a definite political cleavage between North and South as seemed likely to develop in the early years of the Republic, but there is a growing tendency for the country to split up into zones controlled by inde- pendent military leaders purely in their own self- interest. It must however be borne in mind that de- gree of control, which independent military leaders or factions at present exercise over these groups, provinces or smaller areas, is constantly changing and liable to sudden collapse and that they are no more representative of local public opinion than recent goverments in Peking, to which it has been the practice of independent military chiefs to accredit official representatives, So long as present con- ditions of civil strife continue there seem to me no grounds for the assumption that if China were encourag- ed to revert to fiscal system in force before 1911, military lenders who happen to control a large treaty
port,
I
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