Canton Situation Darkest Spot in China Today

by HIN WONG

THERE is no other time in history when life, liberty, and Property in Canton has been so unsafe as today. A municipal order under the pretext of military necessity may condemn property; and policemen may seize any person at any time when instructed to press men into military transportation service.

The Sun Yat-sen faction of the Kuomingtang is fighting the Cheng Chiung-ming faction, Sun using Canton City as his base while Chen makes Waichow his headquarters. Both are compelling the Cantonese to contribute life and property to support their fratricidal war, neither having any regard for the life and liberty of their fellow provincials.

Property holding in Kwangtung nowadays is insecure The campaign inaugurated by Dr. Sun’s military regime, beginning first at Canton proper, for the purpose of confiscating the lands of the people is still going on.

Ever since Dr. Sun’s last return to Canton in the early spring of 1923, he has been mercilessly pressed for funds by his Yunnanese mercenary troops and other politicians whose sole aim in following the Southern leader is for office and graft. Dr. Sun could not do otherwise than hire Yunnanese, because his followers were incompetent and powerless in raising either funds or men -to meet Chen Chiung-ming’s faction. The hired Kwangsi and Yunnan troops’ interest in the struggle is twofold: the officials use the opportunity to build fortunes for themselves and the soldiers grasp the chance to rape and loot. Dr. Sun is not unaware of the bitterness which his policy has caused among the people, but he is desperate. The Cantonese are unable fully to understand his patriotism and love for his fellow provincials and he has to push the war to success by his own means or suffer another failure and defeat.

What could Dr. Sun do when pressed for money and had none? The overseas Chinese who have contributed so much in the previous struggles are not now so enthusiastic or generous in their remittances. Brigandage and piracy, the legacy of maladministration and feudal war, are making river traffic and inland communications too dangerous for the district governments to remit funds to the provincial capital, if the districts themselves are able to collect any tax at all. The mercenary troops not only commandeer tax proceeds and occupy revenue offices but also themselves offer protection to opium and gambling as a means of revenue. There is a limit to the sale of public lands and buildings. The Bank of Kwangtung can no longer issue notes, as the $32,000,000 put on the market by government sanction was later refused by the government itself, thus imposing no little hardship on the People, Dr. Sun was able at first to obtain loans and advance payment of taxes from the people when there was hope of buying peace, It may be a lack of tact and invite trouble, but truth and fact compel an honest person to say that terrorism brought to Canton by the Kwangsi militarist and his former allies has not abated, but has spread greatly. Dr. Sun’s enemy is still harassing the Canton administration by making trouble in the eastern districts, at Kiungchow, Ko-Lui, Yam® Lim, and other places. Something like $60,000 are needed daily sometimes to support the men on the front, besides wages, of which there has been no accurate figure as no one knows how many officers and men Dr. Sun has under him at any one time. Sometimes the mercenary troop commanders are very cruel and heartless to the “old men” and hesitate to advance in order to stop and exact money even in the most crucial periods of the struggle. The less selfish of Dr. Sun’s commanders are inwardly very antagonistic to certain Yunnanese Officers, and Dr. Sun’s next move will be against the latter before starting his northern campaign.

Sun’s policy of confiscation commenced some nine months ago When the valuable Canton Experiment Station of Agriculture and Forestry located at Shaho measuring several hundred mows and containing records and plants of many lands. varieties, and climes which have been under observation for the last ten or more years was sold to satisfy war bills notwithstanding the fact that South China is primarily an agricultural country. The large yamen where once Lung Chi-kuang received his edict from Yuan Shih-kai to become a prince and Dr. Sun Yat-sen accepted his presidential seal for the Constitutionalist government was sold about the same time, the palace and grounds comprising some 2,351 chengs of land. The yamen of the salt commissioner, 1,055 chengs was likewise sold. The Tai-Fat-Tsze, the Five Genii Temple, and other places of local fame are now no more. Altogether some 848 public houses of worship, including 37 monasteries, 105 nunneries, and 706 temples in Canton City alone, were subject to confiscation together with their endowed properties, movable or unmovable, past as well as present. Upon the report of the police, special investigators, or informers who receive from eight to twenty percent of the proceeds for their service, it is the procedure of the Canton Municipal Department of Public Finance to summon the owner or occupant of the alleged government land or building to appear before the commissioner with his deeds and other documents to prove his ownership within seven days, failure to do so resulting in condemnation by default. When property is judged government or temple in origin, present occupants are given preferential rights in its repurchase within 15 days. The upset prices for such properties are put under six divisions according to their appraised value. the first being from $200 upward a cheng; the second, $200; the third, $180; the fourth, $160; the fifth, $140; and the sixth, $120. Applications for purchase or re-purchase are made in duplicate, the original with a deposit for at least one cheng’s value going to the municipal commissioner of finance, who is Mr, Li Luk Chiu, a private secretary to Dr. Sun; the other going to the mayor, Mr. Sun Fo, the son of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. The decision of the commissioner is practically final, as the property owner who thinks himself unjustly treated may only appeal to the mayor or the civil governor who, like the commissioner, are also hard pressed for funds by the military headquarters of Dr, Sun Yat-sen.

The people in Canton are helpless in the absence of law and unprejudiced courts. By making this land seizure a military measure and thus preventing further review by the courts and charging individuals adverse to the measure with being friendly to Chen Chiung-ming or with treason, protest is useless except when solidly organized. Moreover, all influential citizens have left the city, and for several months the president and vice-president of the Canton General Chamber of Commerce only lent their names to official documents without being personally present in Canton. The Provincial Assembly of Kwangtung and the Advisory Council of the Canton Municipality have their meeting places occupied by troops, and no quorum is possible, because of the fear of many members to return to the city during the military regime. The nine charitable associations are now impotent due to their inability to meet the requests of the present officials for financial assistance.

To be suddenly dispossessed of one’s home or family temple of religious worship or to be called upon to raise hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars within a fortnight, especially when father or husband is away or the high priest absent from the temple, naturally causes no little anxiety, vexation, and suffering. But military law and action of the strong against the weak know no sympathy and are blind to justice. The greatest injustice done is that the people have to suffer as victims of the conflicting authority‘of the officials themselves. In May 1923, the commissioner of public lands of Kwangtung issued a statement that no other’ government bureau but his might dispose of public lands, while the commissioner of public finance of the province on June 14 called for tenders for the purchase of the former presidential palace, giving the upset price of $120 per cheng, In the case of the Temple of the Duke of the North City, at Fu Hock Sai Kai, from which the Municipality had previously transferred over to the Canton Builders Guild, the Bureau of Public Lands of Kwangtung sold the property toa syndicate, threatening to forcibly dispossess the actual occupants, if they did not vacate the premises. The other day armed conflict would have taker place in the chicken market district had the Municipality insisted on selling the barracks of the merchants’ volunteer corps there contrary to the wish and offer of the latter to re-purchase the temple concerned. The Yunnanese military authorities in the district virtually over-ruled the action of the mayor and the municipal commissioner of finance. Only recently one Tseng Kai-mei reported to the municipality that some 75 streets and the land therein in Wong’sha were public once and this action caused the several thousand land owners to make a joint protest through the general chamber of commerce to the highest authorities in Canton: and they all took note of the case, the Generalissimo appointing a special deputy to look into the matter while the Bureau of Finance of Kwangtung even went as far as arresting the informer. In justice to the informer, it was generally believed that his information might be of value to the government in case it should investigate the matter, even the officials concerned never intending that his report be accepted without further inspection. However, this Tseng is being made a scape-goat, the Bureau of Kwangtung Finance never thinking that it was interfering with the authorities of the land bureau and the municipality when it took action over matters which had already been taken from its jurisdiction. Cases of like nature whereby property may be taken over by several authorities at the same time and several re-purchases exacted are not unusual happenings and of all such the public alone is the victim.

Another injustice to the people is that there is no definite and uniform basis to decide what is and what is not public property. The Bureau of Public Lands of Kwangtung, in the case of the 13 buildings west of the Kwangtung Electric Supply Company, held that only deeds certified to by officials of the tenth year of the Emperor Hom Fung are valid and sufficient proof of private ownership while the municipal clerks, according toa report of the Yin Chiang Pao Daily, always insist an earlier deed be submitted. The republican era and official acts are no good, in spite of taxes having been paid for the registration and verification of Property deeds. Another injustice is the review of official actions and public grants of generations ago. When once a temple Property, it is always a public property, according to the present opinion of the military regime, The East Parade Ground, appropriated several years ago by Governor Chu Ching-lan of Kwangtung with the approval of President Li Yuan-hung for a public recreation ground, has been recalled by the present authorities. One Tsang Yin had to lose his house upon a report that he was once an official under Mu Yung-hsien, an appointee of the one-time Kwangsi warlord Lu Yung-ting, a former Tutuh of Kwangtung who once served with Dr. Sun Yat-sen as an administrative director but later deserted the constitutionalist cause without the approval of the party of the Southern chief. The time of seven days to prove one’s case is altogether too short, especially when a father or a husband in possession of the family papers may have gone abroad, not mentioning the possibility of having lost one’s property deeds altogether in fires, in the great floods in Canton in 1915 or by other accidents. In the city of Canton it may be easier for one to submit a deed on his Property, but in nine cases out of ten the inhabitants of the villages will never be able to render a documental account of their holdings.

Not only in Canton proper but in every city, town, and village where the military authorities under the name of Dr. Sun are able to exist, inquisitions are going on. A summons from the land agent means the beginning of a period of vexation and excitement. A petition denying the military charge of having held public lands illegally has to be drafted, deeds photographed for attaching to the petition, appeals made to influential persons to intercede -with the officials to have the charge properly investigated and decided, and if the decision is unfavorable, to fix the upset price at a minimum. All this has to be done quickly in order to save one’s property from confiscation.

In some cases like those of Chien Kam Kai and Paktzekong near Tungshan and Lungmeitao, in Honam in which some hundreds of poor families and small shops have been charged with having occupied lands which were once temple or official property, the inhabitants were forced to make a general] protest and driven to organize a league for self defense. To avoid similar interference with their property rights, the Cantonese are beginning to organize a property protection association to defend their private property against further unreasonable investigation and seizure, So far no one knows the amount of money obtained by this inquisition process exactly, as the order of the generalissimo to his treasurer to publish a financial report before October 20 has not yet been complied with.

Non-property owners are not free from anxiety and vexation, either, Dr. Sun not only needs money but also men for military purposes, Since the fratricidal war more than 40,000 men have been drafted or pressed into transportation service in various places in Kwangtung. Most of the men were taken on the streets when found walking or sitting in front of their small shops, and many mothers and wives have been caused to wonder whither their boys and husbands have vanished. Some have died while doing military transportation service.