are hardly enough funds for one
administration, let alone two.

2.

The members of the new southern government are strikingly different in
type from those one meets elsewhere whether in Peking or the
provincial capitals. The latter men are literally mediaeval when they
are not late Roman Empire, though most of them have learned a little
modern patter to hand out to foreigners. The former are educated men,
not only in the school sense and in the sense that they have had some
special training for their jobs, but in the sense that they think the
ideas and speak the language current among progressive folk all over
the world. They welcome inquiry and talk freely of their plans, hopes
and fears. I had the opportunity of meeting all the men who are most
influential in both the local and federal governments; these
conversations did not take the form of interviews for publication, but
I learned that there are at least three angles from which the total
situation is viewed.

Governor Chen has had no foreign education and speaks no English. He
is distinctively Chinese in his training and outlook. He is a man of
force, capable of drastic methods, straightforward intellectually and
physically, of unquestioned integrity and of almost Spartan life in a
country where official position is largely prized for the luxuries it
makes possible. For example, practically alone among Chinese
provincial officials of the first rank he has no concubines. Not only
this, but he proposed to the provincial assembly a measure to
disenfranchise all persons who have concubines. (The measure failed
because it is said its passage would have deprived the majority of the
assemblymen of their votes.) He is by all odds the most impressive of
all the officials whom I have met in China. If I were to select a man
likely to become a national figure of the first order in the future,
it would be, unhesitatingly, Governor Chen. He can give and also
command loyalty--a fact which in itself makes him almost unique.

His views in gist are as follows: The problem of problems in China is
that of real unification. Industry and education are held back because
of lack of stability of government, and the better elements in society
seclude themselves from all public effort. The question is how this
unification is to be obtained. In the past it has been tried by force
used by strong individuals. Yuan Shi Kai tried and failed; Feng Kuo
Chang tried and failed; Tuan Chi Jui tr