To Be Partitioned?

The Government set up by the victorious Cantonese forces at Wuchang (TIME, Dec. 13) was on its best behavior last week as British Minister Miles Wedderburn Lampson arrived at Hankow just across the Yangtze. An anti-British strike which had impended at Hankow was called off. The Cantonese General Chiang Kai-shek and the Contonese Foreign Minister Dr. Eugene Chen received Minister Lampson in state, as well as Japanese and U.S. consular representatives.

The inferencepported by London rumorshe might be set up as a Japanese puppet in Peking.

Such a division of China would of course arouse U.S. opposition as contravening the Washington treaties. Moreover the Cantonese displayed last week a wise reluctance toward accepting British overtures. Russia has backed Canton till now; and the friendship of the British Lion must not be bought by incurring the displeasure of the Russian Bear. The aim of the Cantonese is to free China from bondage to the Powers, and their prudent leaders do not welcome too much British "protection."

General Michael Borodin, the Russian field adviser to the Cantonese r threatened once more to upset the Chinese apple cart, last week, was the sudden appearance from the North of some 36,000 troops under the redoubtable "Chinese Cromwell" Feng Yu-hsiang. Feng was driven into the Mongolian fastness last spring. Nominally he is the friend of the Cantonese, but the ways of the "heathen Chinee" are no more "peculiar" than those of General Feng who is a Christian according to his lights.