Wasp-waisted Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek agrees with President Roosevelt that the present is no time for old-fogyish, orthodox finance. Last week he accepted the resignation of orthodox. Harvard-graduated Finance Minister Dr. T. V. Soong, the only man who has ever balanced Republican China's budget.
Promptly Chinese bonds tobogganed and alarm grew so general that troops had to be thrown around the home of Generalissimo & Mrs. Chiang and the entire government quarter of Nanking. As Dr. Soong's successor Generalissimo Chiang picked the famed 75th lineal descendant of China's great sage Confucius, plump and placid Dr. H, H. Kung who smokes every day some 15 Havana cigars especially banded "Dr. H. H. Kung."
Behind the Soong-Chiang rift of last week—they have quarreled several times before—observers saw more than the chronic impatience of the Chinese Generalissimo with a Finance Minister unable to supply him with unlimited funds for his troops. Recently Dr. Soong, without openly denouncing Generalissimo Chiang. has shown extreme distaste for his policy of conciliation toward Japan. With Soong out of the way, at least for a time, Chiang went the limit last week and announced regular railway service would be reestablished on Nov. 10 between China and Manchukuo for the first time in two years. He hinted that postal service would soon be restored, thus pointing to virtual acquiescence by China in the land grab by which Japan seized Manchuria and set it up as the puppet state Manchukuo.
In Nanking stogie-puffing Finance Minister Kung announced no budget plans, admitting that China's Treasury is now plunging $10,000,000 further into the red every month. With China's biggest bankers in a towering rage and with Chinese soldiers always for hire cheap, scores of government officials decided that some sort of coup against Generalissimo Chiang might be attempted, hastily quit their offices and hid at home.