The Press SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1947. China’s Constitution

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25377, 27 December 1947, Page 6

The Press SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1947. China’s Constitution

A cable message yesterday de : scribed China’s latest constitution, which was to come into effect on Christmas’ Day, as “the crowning success of Dr. Sun “Yat-sen’s revolution”, and added that the constitution “ lifts the “people of China from a feudal i “state to a fledgling democracy “ and gives them many freedoms ' “ they have not known before ”. Hope for China’s political future will rise as evidence appears that the constitution can and will be worked. Meanwhile, the assumption of the cable message, that it will work out to its full face value, is an assumption only. The opposition which the Kuomintang extremists raised in the National Assembly a year ago to some of the more democratic provisions can hardly be forgotten; and since no party inside China’s nationalist-controlled . area now stands strongly against the Kuomintang, Marshal Chiang Kaishek may have more trouble than 12 months ago in forcing its extremists into line with the moderates. The danger is that the constitution could be used to strengthen . central government rather than to place power in the hands of the people. Universal suffrage, from 20 years of age, in elections to the National Assembly could produce an electorate of more than 200 millions—if, of course, machinery can i be designed in reasonable time for J effective elections on so vast a scale. ■ But power will not lie with the Assembly, directly or continuously. The Assembly will meet only once every three years. It will then elect a legislative Yuan to which : the Executive Yuan, roughly corre--1 sponding to a Cabinet, will be currently responsible. Democratic con- [! trol, as the “ Economist ” has obE served, will thus be exercised • through a system of indirect election, which the Kuomintang could interpret rind use as a safeguard of its permanent power. If the constitution does in fact work that way, if it leaves the Kuomintang with its power .ineffectively controlled or pruned, it is not likely i to opr to the Chinese many rights ■ or fre ns “they have not known “ bef_. . the rights in government, apparently included in Article 17, of election, recall, initiative, and referendum. Every constitution over the last years—and there have been many—has “guar- “ anteed ” the elementary freedoms of speech, writing, and assembly, ; and the elementary rights of citizens to immunity from authoritari ian arrest, punishment, and search. , Yet the Chinese have never had those rights in any substantial measure. Over the last 20 years it has been Kuomintang control that has kept them away. And the measure in which they are now to be increased will be the first test of the new constitution.