Formosa Valedictory

Carpetbagging General Chen Yi had to put aside, reluctantly, his five-year plan to "reeducate" Formosa. The chief results of his 19 months as governor general had been riots and rebellion by Formosans who detested Chen's grafting monopolies, Chen's monopoly police, and Chen himself (TIME, April 7). Last week, Nanking reached across Formosa Strait and bounced Governor Chen.

To give further assurance that Formosans were no longer to be treated like stepchildren, Nanking abolished the governor-generalship outright. Hereafter Formosa will be run like a province of metropolitan China. In Chen's place Nanking was sending a diplomat this time--wise, soft-spoken Wei Tao-ming, Kuomintang lawyer and wartime Ambassador to the U.S.

In a valedictory press conference last week, Chen said he had been misunderstood. His monopoly system was a device for government revenue only. Besides, said Chen: "I never forgot private enterprise. I always intended to re-establish it."

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