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Show LAWMAKERS IN CHINA MISSING Members of Old Parliament Scattered to Four Winds PKKIN. .Tune 24. ProojjnU that the first parliament of the Chinese republic be reconvened as a step toward unification unifi-cation of t ho Nort h u nd 8ou i h ha ve developed two interesting questions. One of them is whether sufficient of the original members could bo found after a lapse of five years. The othr question la whether ITe-Mideait Hsu Hhlh-Chnng could continue aa bead of the J'ekin government If the members uf parliament reassembled. The parliament has had an eventful history. Convoked In Pekin in l!li. It was dissolved by the pite Yuan Knih-kal Knih-kal after it became Impossible to obtain ob-tain a quorum. The; parliament was reconvened ufter Yuan Hhih-kai'n death, but was again dissolved by the northern milltarisia In 1917. Slnc then the members have had a wandering wander-ing t-xlstencf, although wherever they met, they claimed to he the sole repositories re-positories of constitutional government. lrivi-n out of Canton, they made their way towards Yunnan, only to be driven into r.nother and successive provinces by the nets of various armies. The stragglers drifted buck to Canton where 222 members, out of the original 870. cast 213 votes in Apt 11, l!UI. for the election of Sun Vat Sen aa "president of the Chinese republic." It la declared that It would Mkn three months to locate such of the members as are still living. Various opinlona are expressed US to the probable attitude of President Hsu toward convening ihe old parliament. Discussing this point tho TientHin Times, in an editorial today to-day aays: "The reconvening of the old parliament parlia-ment haa important hearing on ihe t problem of reunification. It will finally . dispose of the pretension of Hsu Kh'h-chang Kh'h-chang to be the b'tcal prtxnb nt of china chi-na a pretension which constitute an insuperable obstacle to reunification President Hu was not chosen by any legally elected legislature, but by a bogus parliament orgatajaed by t hr northern, militarists. I tin election has consistently been denounced as farcical farci-cal and Illegal bv the members nf the old parliament anj any at temp; 1i i solve China's political trouble which ' provide for his retention of office un-I un-I til th'- txpiration of his so called term, Is doomed to fall." |