CHINA'S NATIONAL LEADER.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 218, 15 September 1925, Page 9

CHINA'S NATIONAL LEADER.

» ■ TRIBUTE TO MARSHAL FENG. Mr. D. E. Hoste, general director of the China Inland Mission, was the guest of the Auckland Ministers' Association at a luncheon yesterday over which the Rev. E. Drake presided. Mr. Hoste spoke highly of the qualities of Marshal Feng, whom he described as a great national leader of the Chinese nation* Mr. Hoste said if he were asked whether there was a man in sight who possessed commanding character and capacity to pull together the contending factions he Would venture to say that man Was Marshal Feng. More tharl any marl in China, Marshal Feng had the confidence of the mass of the people.

Mr. Hoste said Marshal Feng had been «, high toned Christian for 15 years. During the past 12 years he had a uniform record of honesty and efficiency in the sphere of his control, and was steadily growing in power. In times of public stress he and his soldiers worked like Trojans to deliver the people from their calamities, and it was a matter for* great regret that he had been attacked in some of the cable messages sent out from China. The basis of the attack on Marshal Feng Was that he had been a traitor to Wu Pei Fu. That "he had left the latter was true, but it had to be remembered that a point Was ■ sometimes reached in the lease of misgovernance when a man, in the public interest, regarded it his duty to turn against the Government. To say that Feng abandoned Wu Pei Fu through the dictates of self-interest was quite wrong, and the allegation that he had received a huge bribe from the latter's rival, Chang Tso Lin, was without foundation. Feng remonstrated with Wu Pei Fu for weeks before he took the final step, holding that the continual devastation of the country was serving no moral or national purpose whatever. Feng, in fact, was a man of high purpose and ascetic habits, in whom- the nation could well trust its destiny.