27 SEPTEMBER 1935, Page 2

Chinese Progress While the advice so high an authority on

public finance as Sir Frederick Leith-Ross can give to the Government at Nanking may be counted on to promote stability in China in that field, it is satisfactory to learn, on the authority of a Chinese correspondent cited by Mr. Warburton Davidson in The Times, of the substantial 'improvement effected in the important western province of Szeehuan by General Chiang Kai-shek as the result of his recent campaign against the Communists there. Both taxation and local government is said to have been unified, and the vexatious delays resulting' from constant tax- levies on goods in transit have been abolished. The army has been reorganised, motor-roads and car-ferries are under -construction, and capital which had fled east to Shanghai is now returning to its native home for productive invest- ment. Even though this account be a little highly 'coloured, the picture it presents is confirnied in general by other . reports of the immense' improvement in conditions in Western China. If Nanking can maintain an effective contact with Szechuan, and control' the intervening provinces, it will be in a stronger position than any Chinese government since the revolution.

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