UNREST IN CHINA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15821, 21 July 1913, Page 5

UNREST IN CHINA

CEISIS DEVELOPING. ALARMING POSSIBILITIES. CABINET RESIGNS. . JAPANESE HELPING THE KEBELS. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. PEKING, Jnly 19. (Received July 20, at 5.5 p.m.) The crisis is developing, and threatens to be one of first-class magnitude.

The Cabinet has resigned. The trouble springs from rivalry between the north and south and Yuan Shih-Kai's efforts to override the provincial authorities. The southerners demand the President's resignation.

The immediate cause of the revolt is Yuan Shih-Kai's dismissal of the Tutuh of Kiang-si. The young generals are flouting the President's authority, and the necessity for keeping large forces in Mongolia, where the situation is eerious, is increasing Yuan Shih-Kai's difficulties. Dr Sun Yat Sen is openly favouring the southerners.

Nsenchanhsnan,; who is a man of great force of character and of Tiithlese disposition, has been proclaimed as the revolutionary President. His troops have captured the British section of the Tientsin railway. The southerners killed upwards of 20 officers who were loyal to the Central Government.

Yuan Shili-Kai has appointed General Fetirkuo-chang, who captured Hanyang during the revolution, to supreme command in Yang-tee. It is reported that upwards of 40 Japanese officers are assisting the rebels. The troops at the Woosung forte have joined the rebels. HONGKONG, July 19. (Received July 20, at 5.5 p.m.) Britain has sent a destroyer to Canton.

The situation remains absolutely unchanged (wrote the Peking correspondent of a London paper, recently). Not a smglo thing has occurred to improve a position which it is impossible to designate otherwise than as calamitous. In Poking tho military court attached to the War Ministry, which General Tuan-lhi-jui admitted in Parliament was a remnant of Manchu rule, continues to be tho main engine of Government, and summary exccutions—it is impossible to discover precisely for what reasons—are the order of tho day. One wonders what has become of the Nanking Provisional Constitution and other declarations which seemingly ushered in the new era. It is a commonplace that' lawlessness breeds lawlessness. Here, in China, it is surely an ominous sign that men havo ceased inquiring why such conditions obtain; they only ask how long this interregnum will last. Certainly it is hardly worth while getting rid of the dynasty legitimised by threo centuries of' rulo if China thereby jumps out of {ho frying pan into tho firo In a later message tho same correspondent says: "The straggly in China has been advanced a step further by the' issue of an extraordinary Presidential mandate, worded precisely like an Imperial edict, Tho President, after reviewing exhaustively the actions of Li-lich-chun, Tutuh of Kiangsi, and particularly the disposition of his provincial troops, summarily orders him to vacate his post and conic to Peking to receive another applicant. This brings matters between Peking and the southern provinces to a head, and must lead to dramatic results. No authority Is vested in tho Provisional President by the Provisional Constitution to interfere with'high provincial appointments. Half a year ago, when Bills wcro submitted by the former Advisory Council govorning the appointments of the chief civil administrators, they were summarily rejected 1 . In epite_ of this tho President, after an interval, issued a mandate ordering the appointment of civil administrators named by him.

" Either China is a Republic or not a Republic. If tho former, then tho Government of tho country must proceed according to tho Nanking Act of Settlement and tho Provisional Constitution, until Parliament completes some new instrument. If the latter—namely, that China is not a Republic,—then tho forciblo restoration of the Manchu dynasty is the only legal method-of reintroducing autocracy.

" Tho continual contempt that is displayed for Parliament is an evil augury for the future, while the massing of northern troops in Central China when-, well-armed Mongol bands, unchecked, arc raiding the country for and wide'just beyond the Great Wall, is a further interesting commentary on the whole policy of the present regime. " Indications increasingly point to the fact that Japanese public opinion will not tolerate much longer tho anomalous situation that has been created since tho quintuple loan was forced through by tho Powers for purely selfish but not very honourable motives.

"Three capital facts of which everybody should seize hold in England arc: First, unless vastly increased taxation is willingly voted by tho provinces China cannot pay her way, and must become bankrupt. Secondly, Parliament will never vote that taxation unless its authority is supremo. Thirdly; jf baidtruprtcy finally comes foreign intervention and forcible partition under some euphemism will infallibly follow. Does England want this?"