RED RUIN

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 149, 21 December 1926, Page 10

RED RUIN

RUSSIA IN CHINA

FORCES OF DISINTEGRATION AT

WORK

UNIVERSITY CHANCELLOR'S IMPBESSIONS.

A very pessimistic view of the future of China has been formed by .'Professor B. MacmUlan Brown, Chancellor of tho University of New Zealand, as the result of a personal visit to the scene of the present crisis in the East. Professor Brown returned by the Marama to-day, via Sydney. The principal mission of Professor Macmillan Brown in. the East was to ' attend the Pan-Pacific Science _Con- j gress in Tokio, but before returning to New Zealand he went to Shanghai and Hong Kong in order to inspect conditions in China. Seventeen, years ago he visited practically every corner of . China, and he then made up his mind that though the ISmpresa was still rul- ' ' ing, China was not a unity—that it was not' a nation, but a congeries of races - and languages. "The only thing that has ever unified China," remarked Professor Brown in an interview this morning, "has beon a dynasty,1 often foreign, with a strong army to put down banditry. RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE. "I have come to the conclusion that the Buasian Bolsheviks have resolved to disintegrate China as they have disintegrated Bussia. The mark of all their work,is. quite clear;., they are waking the British' and Japanese the special points of attack by Chinese mobs. Sec- . ondly, I have come to the conclusion that tho whole movement is anti-religious. The Bolsheviks profess that they wish, to annihilate religion, and :in every attack that is made there :is generally some missionary amongst the victims. I see no hope for China if tho slogan of 'Out with the foreigner,' a very ancient slogan in that country, is carried out. There will be nothing but bandit armies led by self-constituted generals all over China. They will plunder all the quiet workers—the farmers, .traders, merchants, and artisans, who form about 90 per cent, of tho population—and, as far as I can see, they will ruin China as they have ruined Bussia if ex-terri-toriality is done away with—that is what they are crying'out for—and if I the tariff is taken int6 the hands of tho bandit armies, . CONTROL BY JAPAN. "The only nation that is fit to take thi* chaos in hand," said Professor Brown, "is Japan, firstly because she is' quite close to China, and secondly because she is tho most efficient nation in the world. Her organising power has been marked as extraordinary by every delegate to the Science . Congress. No nation that entertains that congress will ever approach to the organisation of the Japanese. ■ The . Japanese, however, are rather shrinking from the enormous task of trying to control China. They don't wish to take in band the management of such a , chaos, though doubtless there is in the minds of some of their rulers the am- ' bition to manage China, or at least to exploit it. If they ever attempt this they will come into conflict with the • Bolsheviks, and' undoubtedly they will defeat them. If that should occur and Japan should get the exploitation of China'she will be a very wealthy nation, as wealthy as she is now poor, rind that will enable her to do anything ■ she desires'in the way of mastering any - pari of the world. These are the conclusions I have come to as the result of my visit to China." THE DESTRUCTION OF CHINA. The professor" related an incident which he s\w occur on the Bund, in Shanghai, where all the business houses and banks are situated. As he was passing tho Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank some/ coolies .stopped and looked up at the two bronze lions eonchant in front of the building. One of them pointed . with a sneer to the lions, and directed the attention of other coolies round abont, whereupon all'laughed aa much as to,say, ''That animal is played out." . Pwjfessor Brown remarked that with such things occurring to indicate the feeling of the people, he could see no hope for China as a market for European merchandise for many a long generation to come. "And it means,'.', he added,"the destruction of China." ANTIPATHY TO JAPAN. It was.not merely the British against whom ■ Chinese antipathy was directed, no continued, bat also the Japanese, for tha reason that they wore the Imperialist Powers ot tha world to-day. The Chinese students and coolies shouted out that the Japanese were Imperialists, and must b£ done away with. Through? oat China there were hundreds and thousands of agitator:* paid by the Bolsheviks. Tlwy wer6 ji] So a u through Japan, though hidden,, and Japan was destined. to have trouble with labour, just as Britain' had had trouble. In fact, the Bolsheviks had discovered the ' .tree weapon for attacking their two greatest enemies, Japan and Britain— (Hsintegration ,of their Oriental market and the introduction of strikes and Boycotts into Eastern labour. It was . ,<j»it« impossible for either nation to 4p*l satisfactorily with such a posimm; all they could do was to protect their subjects from outrage. "Of Cfmrs«," tip professor added, "this was going on seventeen years ago under the Empress.' There was boycotting against the Japanese and others, and there were strikes—nay, rebellions —in' the South', and altogether China was in a ferment. What makes the future specially difficult for China is the eleventh commandment of China—squeeze. It wipes out all the other ten. That has been going on in China through all time, and it wiU never cease. It makes the chance of Chinese Courts of justice im-1 practicable."