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3. With foreign supervision and Chinese material, magnificent structures can be erected in an incredibly short time. Examples are the Colony of Hong Kong, the Customs Administration, the Shanghai Municipality, and the British concessions at the larger ports. They are all apparently based on Chinese industry and commerce, but they are kept to their high level by the firm hold of the few foreigners who control them. Immediately that grasp is released the whole thing crumbles and subsides to the mud-hut level of native undertakings. And so with the Nationalist revolution. When Borodin and his assistants were in the saddle, the revenues of the province were reorganised, accounts were checked, peculation reduced, and money flowed into the Treasury. The attack on British interests was skilfully directed and regulated. The various attacking forces were kept up to the mark and yet restrained within the safety limit. Propaganda was invented and organised to the best advantage, the main object being to bludgeon any Chinese opposition by denouncing it as traitorous and imperialistic. The army was created and supplied with a corps of officers trained at the Whampoa Academy by Russian instructors. education consisted in revolutionary politics as much as military science, whilst the arms for their equipment were shipped from Vladivostok. By the time that the Cantonese Northern expedition had set forth on its triumphal career, the Russians had welded the left wing Kuo Min-tang party into a formidable and well-disciplined political and military machine, which not only defied and flouted all the foreign Powers, but at the same time brushed aside such feeble opposition as the disunited Northern militarists were able to place in its path.
Their
4. Fortunately, the success of the Nationalists was so rapid and the territory they occupied so vast, that the handful of Russians were unable to maintain control over the scattered forces, and as soon as the Chinese were left to themselves, the usual Chinese vices of self-seeking, personal intrigue and general incompetence destroyed the organisation which had been so carefully built up. The excesses of Communist labour alienated all the property owners, however small, and the Chinese population is after all made up of small property owners. The extremist civilian politicians in the Hankow group became jealous of Chiang Kai-shek and other generals, who, they felt, were usurping too much power. The latter, realising that a plot was on foot for their overthrow, struck suddenly and hard at their enemies. A general round-up of Communists and labour leaders took place in the middle of April up and down the coast from Canton to Shanghai, and for the time being Soviet influence is at a discount. But from the moment that Russian control over the Nationalist movement was eliminated the whole thing began to break up and become much less dangerous so far as foreign interests were concerned.
5. In Canton, at all events, we are, as I have said above, back in old China, The committee form of government may be retained, but General Li Chai-sum is in reality the Military Governor of this province and General Wang Shui-hung that of Kwangsi. The theory is that they are subordinate to the Nationalist Govern- ment at Nanking, but their allegiance is much like that of the northern provinces to Peking, in the days when the Peking Government had rather more power than it has now. Unimportant orders and appointments may be accepted, but in vital matters I imagine that General Li Chai-sum maintains his independence, and there are signs that he does not see eye to eye with Nanking over the disposal of the Kuangtung revenues. General Li, moreover, is a Chinese soldier of the old pattern. Although a native of Kwangsi, he was educated at the Paotingfu Military Academy in Chihli, and speaks the Peking dialect better than Cantonese. He certainly has no sympathy with Communism or labour unrest, and I do not think that he is particularly anti-foreign. There is, however, still a strong Labour party in Canton with which he has to reckon, and he doubtless would be prepared to let them agitate against the foreigner if it were a convenient way of diverting their energies from his own direction. The measure of protection he afforded to British interests would probably depend exactly on the amount of benefit he hoped to get out of us and the extent to which he feared our vengeance. I do not imagine that he is hampered by any political principles or scruples.
6. On the other hand, his semi-independent position is a vulnerable one. Like his brother militarists in the North, he is liable to attack on all sides and to the defection of his colleagues and subordinates. He therefore cannot afford lightly to antagonise the foreigner, and especially the British, with their large military and naval forces, their wealthy Chinese commercial community in Hong Kong. from whom he hopes to draw direct financial assistance, and their trade, which is necessary to his revenue. The tone of the local administration in dealing
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with this consulate-general has become a good deal less truculent than it used to be, and there have been a number of indications that General Li desires to avoid unpleasantness with the British authorities. He settled the "Lungshan" incident in a prompt and satisfactory manner. He sent a representative to attend my reception on the King's birthday, whilst he himself went unofficially to Hong Kong to watch the naval and military review which took place in the colony on that day. He is placing orders in Hong Kong for the building of a number of steam launches for piracy suppression. He is discouraging the delegates of the Seamen's Union, who have appealed to the Canton Government for assistance over the closing of their union in Hong Kong. I am told that he will prevent the proposed erection of a further memorial to the "Shakee massacre "bearing an insulting inscription about British and French imperialism, and, generally speaking, he is keeping good order, and British interests are not being molested in his jurisdiction. This, of course, is not disinterested affection, and he is subjected to a good deal of pressure in the other direction. He is roundly denounced by Labour agitators as a counter-revolutionary and a "running dog of the imperialists, and his further attitude towards the British may, as I have said before, be expected to depend on what he has to hope or to fear from them.
7. I trust that all the above will not seem too much of a digression from the subject of this despatch, which is the possibility of blockading China. It is not really so, for in discussing the economic pressure which can be brought to bear on a Government it is necessary to understand the nature of the forces to which one is opposed. The point I wish to make is that with the disappearance of Russian control the Nationalist movement has for the time being lost its cohesion. The component parts are themselves in a weaker position and can be dealt with separately without so much danger of serious reprisals in other places. The idea of an inter- national pacific blockade of the whole of China is hardly worth considering. For one thing, neither China nor the Powers are united, or are ever likely to be for such a purpose, and for another, if the Powers were united, there would be no need of a blockade. China would immediately give way to any ordinarily reasonable demands, The and presumably His Majesty's Government do not contemplate any other. picture of all China from Harbin to Canton stoutly resisting a prolonged siege by the navies of the world is a fantastic one nowadays, whatever it may have been a hundred years ago.
A blockade of all China by His Majesty's forces alone would also be impracticable for physical as well as political reasons.
8.
As regards the more limited blockade of Canton and the West River, some of the above considerations would still apply. If the Great Powers were sufficiently in accord to make a united demand on the Canton authorities, backed up by a show of naval force, no blockade would be necessary. There would be an immediate compliance. But here again the chance of securing international unanimity in such a matter is so remote as to be scarcely worth consideration. All our experience of the past two years has shown us that it is useless to look for the co-operation of the other Powers in any circumstances that are likely to arise in this province. If the Nanking outrages leave them unmoved, it is not probable that they will allow themselves to be involved in any quarrel with Canton, with the inevitable suspicion that they are pulling the chestnuts out of the fire for the British colony of Hong Kong.
9.
We therefore come to the only practical problem which is likely to face us in the near future, and that is what we alone are prepared to do in the event of a further attack by boycott or other means on British interests in South China. The report of the Advisory Committee reaches the conclusion that a blockade of Canton. even with prior international agreement, would only be successful in very favourable circumstances. With this view I entirely disagree. As stated above I feel certain that if Canton were faced with a reasonable demand by the united Powers backed by a show of force, it would at once give way, but even if it did not, I think the committee underrates the pressure which would be exerted by a complete stoppage of foreign and coastal trade. Canton is now largely dependent on steamer-borne goods and still more so on the junk and launch traffic which fills the innumerable waterways of the delta. The available statistics are given in the reply prepared by the Hong Kong Defence Committee, and I will not repeat them here. All this transport of the necessaries of life could easily be stopped, or seriously interfered with, by river gunboats, and Canton as well as the other towns in the neighbourhood would soon be reduced to dire straits, whatever the quality of the local rice crops might be, and whoever was in power at the time.
10. A regular blockade would be very much more difficult, and perhaps
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