Round House

Monday, 15 April

At 9.00 a.m. I went to the Nationalist Government weekly memorial service. Mr. Feng Yuxiang (馮玉祥) made a report citing Zhuge Liang’s (諸葛亮) warning to Guan Yunchang (關雲長) in the Romance of The Three Kingdoms that one should not have many enemies at the same time to prove the posthumous teaching of Dr. Sun Yat-sen that we should unite those nations in the world which treat us on an equal footing.

Deng Junyi came. I asked him about the matter regarding Xie Jinlou. He said Xie lived in three places. He had been to all of these places but could not ascertain if she had hung the said photo. Also she did not mention anything about Wang Chonghui. She had led a quite well-off life over the past few years. She could even earn two to three thousand dollars each month if she had good luck, so there was no point in her to trying an illegal trick. Also, if she was retained on a monthly basis by someone she would fear other people would find out, which would hinder her business. She would not advertise that she was retained on a monthly basis by someone. What Deng said was quite logical so I relayed this directly to Wang Chonghui. He immediately reviewed with me the purpose of the person who spread the rumour. I thought that it happened that when the rumour was circulated, details were added bit by bit during the circulation process. This was perhaps the reason and it was not an evil plot intentionally hatched by someone as I was unable to think of a reason for doing so.

Sun Fo invited Huang Yuanbin (黃元彬) and others to have lunch at his home.

At 2.30 p.m. Zhang Bojun came to discuss the inside story of the proposal of the Xianzheng Qichenghui. He said before the conference that General Chiang asked Wang Shijie to discuss the proposal with the Xianzheng Qichenghui members. Wang Shijie only asked Carsun Chang, Lo Wenkan and others to discuss it. (Zhang Bojun thought that Wang had another plan in his mind.) After the discussion he heard that General Chiang agreed to the establishment of the National Political Council in principle but he advocated curtailing the participants to fifty people. So General Chiang blamed their speeches of the Saturday before last. They were extremely unhappy as they thought that General Chiang had gone back on his word. Thus they were determined not to attend. As a matter of fact, when the Xianzheng Qichenghui studied the issue, three types of opinion appeared. 1) For those who supported the draft constitution among the KMT, it was a pity they were not well-qualified. They not only did not possess as much knowledge of the constitution as those of the Xianzheng Qichenghui, but they also even agreed with them on the amendment bill. 2) What the China Democratic Socialist Party advocated was a completely British-styled parliamentary politics, which was reflected by the content of the amendment bill. 3) What the CCP and the Third Party advocated was putting emphasis on the principles of economic and other socialist principles. If we could be in touch with them beforehand, the China Democratic Socialist Party conspiracy could be dissipated. I said what they did was not very decent. If they criticised us for handling the Party and politics badly, and deemed that we were unable to handle them properly according to the Party principle, we would become speechless and admit our faults willingly. But if they attacked the posthumous teachings of Dr. Sun Yat-sen and suggested amendment, we, as Party members, would try our best to defend against it. As a matter of fact, conscientiously we absolutely believed in the posthumous teachings of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, and would have no slight doubt about it. If they said the draft constitution was so good that we should implement it immediately, then the KMT Government would experience great difficulty. The reason being that during this period of our war of resistance, it would be extremely difficult to abolish party rule and implement the constitution. Now what they did would, on the contrary, make our Party members know that there was still someone outside who wanted to overthrow our Party. We should unite ourselves to defend against it and they would have absolutely no standing room. Zhang Bojun really agreed with what I said. At the end we talked about the KMT-CCP issue and he also strongly advocated that we should be unified.

From four until six in the afternoon, President H.H. Kung and his wife held a tea party in the Jialing Hotel to welcome Madame Sun. Many local and foreign guests attended.

At seven o’clock Sun Fo invited Ye Chucang to supper to discuss in detail the issue of establishing the Propagating Committee for the Constitution within the Legislative Yuan. Ye Chucang said the General Bureau of the Election had one proposal. It would dispatch people to every province to be in touch with the representatives there. It had been approved by General Chiang. He asked me how to incorporate the two proposals. I said regarding propagation, it should be left to the Legislative Yuan to handle because: 1) Legislative Committees had researched the content of the draft constitution quite deeply. 2) It would be easier for the Legislative Committees to propagate in various places as the Central Committees were too high in status so local officials and people would not dare to refute them. In this sense, Legislative Committees would be more easy-going. 3) Now that the Central government engaged directly in debates with the so-called parties it was really losing its dignity and would lose the justification to make the highest decisions in the future. Also they could not speak as freely and in as much detail as the Legislative Committees. 4) With regard to what the Legislative Committee advocated for the draft constitution, outsiders would believe that they spoke on behalf of the principle of constitution and rarely from a political background, which would make people believe what they said more. As for how to link up with the representatives, it should surely be handled by those who are in charge of elections. The liaison work should not be done in a very lofty manner. So what I advocated was that nominally it was still the Legislative Yuan dispatching people to canvass and the General Bureau of the Election sending personnel to do the liaison work together. He and Sun Fo agreed with what I said. Wu Shangying talked about the request for additional budget from the Legislative Yuan being rejected. Sun Fo was very angry.