Stalemate?

As reported (TIME, Dec. 10), Dr. Sun Yat-Sen spoke so loudly about making Canton a free port and seizing the customs there, that the Diplomatic Corps in Peking, anxious about foreign debts to China, heard him. The next act was obvious.

Parties of marines, armed with machine guns, landed from some of the nine foreign battleships lying off Canton, and seized the Customs House.

Admiral Leveson, British Commander-in-Chief, and the French Admiral Frochet called upon Sun Yat-Sen and explained the situation to him. Dr. Sun promised non-interference with their admirably executed arrangements--"if the measures taken are sufficient to prevent one [meaning himself]."

Some time before the coup by the Powers, Sun Yat-Sen was warned that the foreign battleships outside Canton would prevent him from seizing the Customs House. "What did he intend to do about it?" Said he: "It will be an honor to be defeated by all the Powers." And he added that his movement would then enter upon its "second phase." Exactly what Dr. Sun meant by that no one was able to discover. In reply to further questions, the Doctor would only gurgle something about Russia and an "alliance."