Dr. Sun's Worries

P:Outside Canton were assembled, cleared for action, a flotilla of foreign warships. They were there to protect the Customs House which Dr. Sun threatened to seize (TIME, Dec. 10).

P:Off Shameen (foreign section of Canton), were five British gunboats, two French and one Portuguese warships. French bluejackets were landed and occupied the post office without resistance. The men were landed there to thwart Dr. Sun in case he decided to resort to force and to protect the foreign population.

P:The Diplomatic Corps in Peking decided to wash its hands of the dispute between Sun and the Peking Government as to who shall have control of the surplus funds from Chinese customs at Canton after meeting the foreign obligations. So long as foriegn payments are met the Diplomats do not mind who has the money, it was reported. Dr. Sun will not, however, be permitted to put his hands on the Canton Customs House.

P:Dr. Sun's lieutenants directed and inflamed popular opinion in the Kwangtung Province against the U. S. The alleged reason for this action was that the U. S. has the strongest naval force at Canton.

P:Said Dr. Sun "to my friends the American people:" "The revenue belongs to us by every right known to God and man. We must stop the money from going to Peking to buy arms to kill us, just as your forefathers stopped taxation going to the English coffers by throwing English tea into Boston Harbor. Has the country of Washington and Lincoln foresworn its faith in freedom and turned from liberator to oppress Ask the officers and men of the American warships to ponder this before they shoot us."

P:To Ramsay MacDonald, leader of the British Labor Party, Dr. Sun cabled: "My Government is being threatened with acts of war by an international force of nearly a score of cruisers and gunboats armed with soldiers, who have already landed at Shameen. This is the work of the diplomatic body at Peking, done at the instance of the British Minister on advice of the senior Consul at Canton, who is the British Consul General and the Inspector General of Chinese Maritime Customs, who is a British national." Mr. MacDonald was asked to bring the "grave situation" to the notice of the British people, "particularly the workers."

P:Sun erected placards in Canton urging an anti-American, anti-British boycott.