[3] See Holcombe, Arthur N., The Chinese Revolution, Cambridge (Massachusetts), 1930, passim, for the outstanding elaboration of this curious experiment, and for a lucid delineation of the genesis of the National Government.
[4] Statement to the author by Col. Ch'in Po-k'u, interview cited, p. [38], n. 20, above.
[5] The names of agencies and offices in the discussion of government and Kuomintang organization are taken from K'ao-shih Yüan [Examination Yüan], Tang Chêng Chien Chih T'u-piao [Charts of Government and Party Development and Organization], Chungking, XXIX (1940), passim. This work has not yet been published, since it is a draft printing, to be revised and re-edited before formal publication. The author was allowed to consult a copy through the courtesy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Wang Ch'ung-hui, and the kind assistance of Mr. C. C. Chi of the Party-Ministry of Publicity. These charts, provisional as they are, are by far the most systematic presentation of modern Chinese government structure which the author has ever seen. For a brief commentary on the Council, see the one-paragraph section, The Supreme National Defense Council in Tsiang Ting-fu, "Reorganization of the National Government," Chinese Year Book 1938-39, cited, p. 356. Dr. Tsiang, whose other writings on Chinese government have been models of clarity, candor, and concreteness, is obliged to state: "As its major functions are involved in the prosecution of the war, military necessity compels the writer to withhold the details of its organization and work for a later issue."
[6] For a biased but bitterly graphic portrayal of Chiang's tiger leaps in politics, see Isaacs, Harold, work cited, passim. Mr. Isaacs' portrayal of Chiang shows him as ambitious, able, and villainous in his need for power and his hostility to the proletariat. The Trotskyite viewpoint is a usefully different one from that obviously adopted by the present author.
[7] Statement to the author, August 1, 1940, in Chungking, by Dr. Wang Shih-chieh, Secretary-General of the People's Political Council and Party-Minister of Publicity.
[8] Wang Shih-chieh, Pi-chiao Hsien-fa, cited above, p. 658 ff.
[9] For example, the date of the law given in Appendix I (G), p. [324], below, is given as August 31, 1939, and it is stated to have passed the Council on that date at the 14th Regular Session; since the Council had been established seventeen months previously, some notion of the frequency or length of sessions may thus be derived.
[10] Wang Shih-chieh, Pi-chiao Hsien-fa, cited, p. 662. The author adds that though the Central Political Council possesses ample authority to interfere in the specific work of the Judicial, Examination, and Control Yüan, such authority was rarely exercised, the Executive and Legislative Yüan constituting the prime objects of its attention.
[11] The same, p. 666.
[12] The same, p. 667-68. The following materials on the independent agencies are also adapted in general from Wang Shih-chieh's work, although interviews, other materials, and the practical experience of the author have been taken into account. From 1930 to 1937 the author's father, Judge Paul Linebarger, was Legal Advisor (Kuo-min Chêng-fu Fa-lü Ku-wên), directly subordinate to the Council of State, and throughout this period the author served as Private Secretary to the Legal Advisor, being authorized by the Council of State to take charge of the American office of the Advisor during the latter's absences from the United States.