The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-02-11
CHINESE NEARLY
BROKE AS WAR
CLOUDS THICKEN
Battle Forces Cost Three
Times as Much as
ToiaI Revenue.
BY WILLIAM PHILIP SIMMS
Scripps-Howard Foreign Editor

WASHINGTON, Feb. Invaded,
in peril Of partition, on the verge
OF bankruptcy and fioundering in
political chaos, China may have to
submit to something akin to in
ternational receivership as the
price of salvation.
China, the writer learns, may
appeal to the League of Nations
as Austria did in 1922, for a help
ing hand in a thoroughgoing re-
organization Of her finances, health
and public services, national de-
Tense and general reconstruction &C
tivities.
Austria was compelled to take
this step to avoid collapse shortly
after the World war. DR.. thinner
man, burgomaster of Rotterdam,
was appointed commissioner general
by the league, and as such was
virtually dictator until the new re-
public's affairs were put in order.
War Adds Cost
From Chinese sources it is re-
vealed that the national receipts
now total only 100000 a month,
about one quarter of what is re-
CURED. Even normal needs foot up
to $22000,000 a month, and now
there is war on. There is, there
fore, a monthly deficit of $4,000 900
in the most critical hour in the his
tory of the Celestial republic.
China's military expense alone, I
am informed, amount to S18,000,000
month, or three times available
revenues. 1t is only by short term
advances, mostly from patriotic
Chinese in Shanghai, that the gov
eminent is able to carry on, even in
this hand-to-mouth fashion.
These factors are regarded as
having something to do with ia
pans laundering warships at
Shanghai. China's chief sources of
revenue are her customers and salt
taxes, and Shanghai and the
Yangtze valley provide most of
these.
The major portions of the GUS
toms and salt revenues are ear
marked for services on the $500 OOO,-
600 government bonds issued dur
ing the last few years.
Must Reduce Army
BondhOlders in China have
warned the Marking government
that unless the countrys best
brains and most experienced bust
ness men are modified and charged
with the task of planning and SUI
pervision, no effective economic re-
Mobilization will be possible.
Habitually for years the bulk of
the national revenues have been
swallowed up by civil war. Little, if |
anything, can be done to put |
China's house in order as long as
a dozen war lords continue to gouge |
the people for funds with which to
maintain personal armies.
There are now approximately
100000 men under arms in China.
Yet there is no national army
worthy Of the name. There are a
dozen armies, each war lord main
tanning one like medieval barons Of |
old.
Decentralization of these troops
and the formation of a much
smaller, yet more efficient, national
army, is regarded as imperative if
China is to survive as a nation.
Funds, Plans Needed
Eventual partition is seen as in
evitable if these paper tigers" as
the Chinese call their self-appOinted
war lords-can not be tanned and
made amenabl eto a unified, mod
ernized central government.
China's excess soldiers, however,
can not be gotten rid of simply by
mastering them out. That would
mean adding to the already vast
number of bandits by just that
many. Some, it is said, must be
hand-picked to form a federal army
and the rest put to work on ma
tional program of road building,
flood control and so forth, under
the supervision of experts.
But all this requires funds, plus
unified, constructive planning. And
adequate funds are not to be had
under existing conditions. China
must do as Austria did and invite
international cooperation if loans
are to come her way.