CHINA'S FUTURE

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 38, 13 August 1921, Page 16

CHINA'S FUTURE

HUGE LATENT WEALTH

I remember well ten years ago, when we were in the midst of the Chinese Bevolution, the answer Viscount Grey, then Secretary of State ; for Foreign Affairs, gave to an official query regarding certain actions at< that time contemplated in China/ He telegraphed simply and 'curtly, "Great Britain desires a strong and united China."-, 1 "The impression created by this message in Pekin and the provinces (writes-Mr. B. Lenox Simpson, Political Adviser,, to, the Government of China, in the London Daily Telegraph), was so decisive that it effectively arrested certain disruptive plans. t " ...

In the intervening years what has been done to give colour and form to a desire which no sensible man will deny is the true and natural aim of Englishmen—a strong and united China? Has the desire which Viscount Grey voiced been translated into any constructive actions and the ,goal ' brought any nearer? No.;, There is no single act to the credit of England or any other, Pou er since the Chinese Republic was created—nothing .but negative policies aiming at postponing the real solution, which can only come by restoring the old equilibrium, in Eastern Asia, necessarily based as much on the indepdence of China as on the independence of Japan. From the earliest days peace in tbe Far East has depended on a proper balance' being preserved -between the two. Whenever the balance has been upset, as in the remote days of the Mongol dyrasty, seven centuries ago, when the invasion of Japan was attempted'by the rulers of Pekin; or again by Hideyoshi's great attack on Korea at the end of the sixteenth century, the whole region of Eastern Asia hag been thrown into such utter confubion that revolution and the fall of dynasties has been the result. What we are therefore ' ■witnessing in China is simply one of the results of the destruction of the old equilibrium whtyh existed down to 1894, and which was> swept away by the naval battle of the Yalu and subsequent events. To imagine, as some people do, thnt the confusion in China is due to some inherent political weakness of the Chinese people is as unintelligent as to declare, as others do, that China is bankruptChina that boasts a population \ of 447,000,000 hard-wor,king people, comprising the astutest traders in the world —China that is producing annually, as nearly as can be estimated, 400,000,000 tons of grains and vegetables at so cheap a. price that |to-day in the streets of Pekin you canbbury r 61b of string beans for one English penny, and eat a square meal of vegetables and soup. for Jd ( ' Cheap and abundant footstuffs; cheap, abundant, and docile labour; clever and enterprising traders:—these are surely not the hall-marks of bankruptcy. But, replies the critic, undisciplined soldiery, provinces that fight on« another, a Government that has not sufficient authority—in a word, perpetual internal turmoil—how is it possible to defend such a state of affairs?' I answer, search out the causes that have brought this about. The ailments are but, passing symptoms of certain causes which will throw off worse symptoms from year to year, whether you have Anslo-japanese alliances, 'consortiums, foreign financial control, and ten thousand other devices or not. In fact, the more devices you try to put in the worse things will grow, until in the_ end yon will get chaos. If that is desired, I have nothing more to say. "CAUSES.OF DISCONTENT.

But if statesmen .wish to know the central causes I will tell them. They are political and social discontent, caused by a, false' financial !pplicy and' a, false British policy in the matter of Japan. Cancel these two/ things, and not at once, but gradually, turmoil will give way to peace, and contentment will blossom so mightily that these troubled years will seem like a dream. You cannot have a strong or effective Government without adequate revenues, as everyone in Europe now knows. China has not adequate revenues, principally because the only source that can yield a 'rapid interest, the Customs tariff; is held in mortmain by the Powera, the proceeds going entirely to Joan service, incredible as it may sound, China has to-day exactly the same 5 per cent, tariff as she had. for eighty years, yielding the miserable >sum (with a population some forty millions more that the population of all Europe) of eight or nine millions sterling a year. She is debarred from increasing her tariff by the commercial treaties—she is kept a pauper and trade is pauperised simply because no nations have sufficient morality or justice to go straight to the root cause and declare that this vital matter must be dealt with forthwith. Given ah adequate tariff, interprovincial trade taxation can be banished forthwith, and the foreign commerce, which <is to-day considerably less than £1 per hefd of population, .conld easily rise to 510 per head (Japan's average). A greater and richer trade in bulk' than the trade of any Power in the>orld lies there ready to the hand of any statesman who has courage and vision enough to tackle the matter and force it to a successful issue; for China is not'a mere nation—China is a civilisation, a whole world by herself, that carl immensely relieve to-day's universal distress if she is encouraged and pushed into the main stream of the -world's commerce and industry. She has endless millions of men, endless, supplies of raw materials and foodstuffs, endless mechanical and trading ability. Release Tier, force her' into the main stream of- the world's commerce \ and industry, give her responsibilities and duties,, and she will rise to them as does everyone who is trusted and treated with esteem. THE JAPANESE ALLIANCE: There is one other matter, and that is all. This is tfie Japanese Treaty. So long as Britain maintains a military alliance with a Power that should stand independently and alone for the preservation of equilibrium in the Far Eaat, so long will China be a prey to turmoil and intrigue. Hurt in her pride by the assumptions and implications of the Treaty —that she is a. mere territory, in which others have special interests, and zones and leased areas; exposed to all sort* of intrigues, set in motion by those who rely upon th« Military Treaty to pull them through if complications arise ; baffled at every turn by bayonets whenever she seeks freedom of action, China can never organise and bo happy, so long as this document exists. Allow it to lapse, and the change which will take place will be remarkable. Japan and China will become friends and equals, not, as some imagine, because they will at once set to work to mak» an Asiatic bloc to be , a menace to the Western world, but simply because their normal condition of friendship will speedily return when such matters as Shantung find an honourable solution. It lias become a prime <*mcern of the British Empire to secure world peace. I appeal to the British statesmen who have gathered from all over- the world to study and grasp the. central ,fnct. that it is the condition of China, coupled with Kritnin'e Japanese conimitments, whichl are. the gravest menace to-day on the Pacific Oofcan, simply because thsse things are unnatural and against all history and prudoiice, and cannot last.

Since the Armistice was signed grave errors have been committed in Asia/ by the greatest of all Asiatic Powers—Eng-

! laud. Far _ ami wide there is discontent among Asiatic men in Asia, Minor, in Persia, in Afghanistan, in China. ; It cannot be that all these men are bad. It must be something else. It is that policy has been bad becaase-it has not yet .understood that all men love their country equally well, and that he who wishes to find an enduring place in their hearts and secure their true allegiance , should not trust to scraps of paper and treaties, but win their respect.