CHINA'S POLICY

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 35, 12 February 1923, Page 3

CHINA'S POLICY

WHITHER WILL IT LEAD?

EVOLVING A SYSTEM

NEED FOR LAW AND ORDER.

As a city Canton shows few signs that it recently was the storm centre of a political intrigue and that a battle v/«s fought almost in,its outskirts, declares Professor P. M. Buck, of Nebraska, in the "New York Times." Dr. Sun Vat Sen has left the so-called President's House and is now in Shanghai in close communication with Pekin and General Wu Pei-fu. Thus enmitieo and the wounds of conflict are healed overnight and political factions are no more—in China. To be sure, the Cantonese are not quite so cordial toward their former President. Before he dropped dowp the river his little battle-grey gunboats let fly a few salvoes along the river front and the Bund, and merchants still point to the holes in their walls and think of the Government that was.

But Canton is quiet and attending strictly to business in the approved Chinese stoical fashion. it is always "business as usual" in China, no matter how many provincial armies may be marching or lighting, or what gapo cannon may have made in city walls and shops. There are a large number of soldiers in Canton. Every shrine, every public building, is crowded with them— their uniforms worn awry, or they may be dying at ease with no uniform except a breech clout. But their rifles are near at hand—rifles that look strangely familiar. They were not made m China. And there are the wounded. One American hospital has had no fewer than 2000. It was a real battle with real casualties.

These soldiers, wounded and whole, belong now to the present military Governor. The status of the gunboats is a little anomalous. Three lie at the mouth of the Pearl River. It was hinted that ■when President Sun made his escape they were intended to intercept him. He.got away, however, in a British gunboat to Hong Kong. Some of the gunboats still lie in the river off Canton. But no one knows to whom they belong. Perhaps even their commanders share the genera 1 ignorance and apathy. But Canton has been changed greatly —one would hardly recognise it—during the Administration of the former President of South China. He and his group of American-trained young advisers had ambitious plans—among others, of straightening the course of the Pearl River and reclaiming seme thousands of acres of rich rice laud. As things are now the delta is subject to frequent and •xperrsive inundations. Dr. Sup Vat Sen has widened the city streets, torn down the old wall, made a boulevard through the city, and given it a tramway. He has filled in old creek beds V/here sampans were crowded and mud and filth abounded, and supplied strests. He left a water aystera, subject to certain vagaries. The day we were there it wss not in operation, and tha Chinese were using old wells and river water. But with the old city yaH have gone many of the sights which tourist* formerly paid guides fat prices to see. Gon« is the old water clock, the Temple of the Genii, the Chamber of Horrors. Indeed, these young Americanised Chinese have spared not even the mo3fc hoary of antiquities in giving their city a modern aspect. But it is said that the buried treasure retrieved from the old wall more than paid for its removal and the building of an excellently paved street.

In the spirit of this wholesale neglect of things sacred we saw a poor man in front of his little hut burning three or four josses. They were figures carved in wood, and, according to him, hundreds of years old. Had we arrived only a few minutes earlier one at least might have been spared the flames. But they were bringing him no luck, he said, and so he publicly held an auto-da-fe while a few of his neighbours'looked on.

But one cannot chide the Cantonese for being somewhat blase. During the last century the city has been more frequently abused than any other in the world. There is hardly a European nation that has not written its shame with cannon balls somewhere on walls or palaces. The English and the French have large concessions in the best parts of the city, both uimsed—a wilderness of trees and crumbling walls and moss overgrown walks —and both have refused to sell. Canton is used to troublesome times. Even, of late the home of the civil Governor has been connected by a long overhead passage to a little fort on a hill, from where the Governor c?,n easiiy get to the river. - OUTCOME A PUZZLE. Now that the political revolution in China has reached a new stage one wonders what the outcome is to be. The power of the Chinese President is confined to Pekin. The old Parliament has been called, but so far has been troubling it3elf chiefly over mere technical matters of procedure and the legality of its sitting. General Wu has stepped aside from the role of conqueror, disclaims all interest in politics, but criticises the President's appointments. Chang, the Manchurian Viceroy defeated by Wu, is back again at Mukden. He makes speeches to the British and Americans and reproaches the British for discriminating against him when he has so carefully protected Europeans in Mancharia.

Each provincial Tuchan, or Military Governor, is a little or a big war lord with his own army and his own laws; and his regard for the Pokin Government^ is proportioned inversely to the size of his army, and his distance from the capital.. The new scene in the Chinese comedy or tragedy—time will tell which—is but one of transition. It may be militarism with a strong military dictator. It may be a long period of the same internal chaos, until a new generation arises. White residents profess to hope that it will not be intervention. In the meanwhile the Japanese Press is enthusiastically asserting friendliness to China and hopes for China's future;_ but the Chinese have had some experience of Japanese friendliness.

The young Chinese political enthusiasts, most of them American trained, profess their deepest concern and discouragement. What can they achieve with mere political or parliamentary weapons, when each Military Governor is a war lord and his gTeed unbounded? In the old days, they say, a provincial Viceroy knew when and speculation became an indecent thing which might be reproved by the Emperor, so he set a limit to his appetite and ate only to satiety. Now the sky is the limit. China presents the curious spectacle of a people essentially industrious and pacifist suffering from the worst ills of militarism and banditry. It is no wonder that young China has become discouraged.

Instances of internal disorders could be multiplied indefinitely. At present nobody can be found to take ever the civil governorship of the province of which Canton is the capital. The Military Governor has the real power. Who would wish to r.ssume the civil authority when all of his acts might lie nullified by the man who commands the armed regimnnis? And the picture of tt.c overhead c.v.Ti;:ie fro;,! pa'arc- to river is rot a thine; in bring a lVslin;,' of security t-j the soul of a civilian Magis-

trate. Not long ago an American vessel • plying between Shanghai and Nanking was held up on a charge of opivjn emußgling. The charge was nevor proved. The owners made ail manner of appeals, but the vessel was held wee)t after week. Pekin might have been appealed to, but what could the Government do? Who shonld bring the appropriate pra3aure to bear? Finally it was hinted that an adequate present would bring about a rectification. BETTER OUTLOOK NOW. In the meanwhile Dr. Sun Vat Sen has just issued a manifesto. This and the evident haste of the Pekin party to admit him to their number seem to give some ground for the hint that the fiasco at Pekin was part of a general scheme. '•'After struggling for constitutionalism for the last six years, during which ■much blood was shed and many lives were sacrificed, the militarists op North have at last come to the realisation that they must support this cause," Dr. Sun Vat Sen said to a (rroup of Chinese journalists. "They realise that to place the nation on a firm basis, law and order must reign and the Legislature must perform its functions freely, without any outside interference. "Whether they are sincere as to what they profess does not concern us at present. Because if they are sincere, and we fail to do our own duty, tho nation will be just as chaotic and lawless as it has been for the last decade. On the other hand 1, if they are not sincere, we, the people, the Press, the general public opinion, will prevent them from going back on their own assertions. "Now that the mitttarists have pledged themselves to support the Republic, there is no longer necessity for warfare. No armed force is necessary to effect pur aspiraijon for national reunification, for to-day the sword should bo laid away and the pen given full play. The self-determination of the military leaders makes it unnecessary to resort to arms to dictate th« terms of the unification, bat ths permansnt responsibility for a permanent unification is now laid upon the shouJders ofr the public, which must see to it that the high ideals of republicanism are car--ried out here in China, so that the foundation of the country will be reinforced with strong principles of desjocracy." "We liave had unification by tyranny and unification by militarism," continued Dr. Sen, "but from vovr on w« must realise that permanent unification mnst be effected through constitutionalism. To you of the Press is entrusted the responsibility of diffusing tie real essence of constitutionalism among the great populace and of watching every move to bs made ty the mifitarista, officials, and pubiic leaders go that the true ideals of democr?<;y shall bo >- carried out in China."

General Wn Pei-fu has endorsed all the items of this manifesto, and it would thus appear, on paper, that the vra,y had been opened for the ultimate pac'£cation of China. But there haire been plans before that looted equally promising, and there have been convocations of Parliaments. Who shall begia tho disbanding of troops? General Chaag'3 opinion has not been a,sked: and he sits tight at Mukden, as strong apparently as though he had never been defeated, and chide 3 the British.