Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1924-12-21

| plete the picture you must suppose
| that half of all the soldiers in our
country have not received any pay
for six months, year or even longer.
Let them be roaming about in bands
of so up into the thousands, preying
on travellers and raiding towns. Fin
ally, suppose also that down in New
| Orleans was a government set up in
rivalry to the one in Washington, call
ing itself the Republic of the South
! and keeping a big army in the field.
u x X i
IF you can imagine all these things
l. you will have some basis for a
conception of the chaos and anarchy
| that exist in China today. You would
| feel sure that neither agriculture, in
dustry nor trade in the United States
could 60 on for q day under such
conditions and perhaps you suppose
that everything in China has come
to stop. Quite the contrary is the
case.
China has never had q strong sys-
tenn of government in our sense of
the word and banditry has always
been more or less prevalent here.
The great mass of the Chinese are
accustomed to look out for them
selves, without much help from the
government. They are SO used to
much of what Is now going on that
they take things more or less as a
matter Of course and go on about
their business much as they always
have done.
In order to understand the China
Of today you must dismiss from your
mind the idea that there is any CEN
trail government such as ours In the
United States. The eighteen prov
inces. exclusive of Manchuria, are
Ia
Kingdoms. These is Kingdoms range
| in size from areas as big as the
State Of Indiana to districts 100000
! square miles larger than Texas, and
| they have populations from 100000
or 100000 to as many as 45,00e,00o
! In practically each one some mill
tary man is the real ruler. While
most of them have civil governors.
these men are compelled to do the
bidding Of the generals who COM
mand the troops in the field. None
OF these generals recognizes any su-
lpreme commander in-chief. They
control the people by force of arms,
say how much they shall pay in taxes
and then go out and collect it.
In the provinces. especially those
of the interior, they raise money by
| selling licenses for gambling and
other concessions. They may sell
puUiiS ptOpVA OF ouStioh " Sc
money to spend or to pay their SOL
diers, or, even worse, they may let
| their men help themselves to what
ever they can pick up on the road or
In raiding villages. Whenever they
want to move troops or goods they
commander railroad cars and loco
motives and send them about as they
please.
These provincial military rulers.
| known as tuchuns, do not bow to any
civil authority in China. They coll
| lect taxes supposed to be for the sup
port Of the Peting government, but
they never seAd any of the proceeds
to the capital The authority of the
| central government does not extend
| for more than 80 miles around Picking
and 1t would hardly exist at all eX-
'cept that 1t Is recognized by the for
eign powers, which still treat it as
though IL were the real and respon-
sible government of China
The Picking government can no
longer protect foreigners and it can
not carry out its treaty obligations
in local matters. 1t may issue orders
to the tuchuns. but IL has no power
to enforce them, and when 1t scowls
in protest the military men merely
laugh in their sleeves. Tt has praeti-
caily no money except what is paid
over to IL by the maritime customs
| service, which is under international
control and in the charge Of Brit
Usher.