FUTURE OF CHINA

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 152, 24 December 1926, Page 16

FUTURE OF CHINA

GBEATEBT NEED IS EDUCATION.

Writing from the University of Hong Kong early in July, Professor George W. Keeton contributes an article to the October "Nineteenth Century," in which he deals with the future of China. While in thorough (sympathy with the aspirations of the Chinese themselves, and prepared to concede that when the Powers at Washington, in 1922, drew up a grandiose plan of reforms they ■were entirely well-meaning, he expresses his own doubts as to whether China is really ready for independence. Her great need, ho thinks, is education— education on a scale hitherto not contemplated by any nation, and of a most comprehensive kind. China has never had a stablo Government in the sensn that most European nations have had and continue to enjoy. It is not quite impossible that the Chinese are temperamentally unfitted for that type of Government altogether, he adds. Lest somo may make rejoinder that a great deal .of the trouble ift China to-day is due to the students, and that their schools and colleges are the headquarters of the revolutionary movements at the various Ttcaty ports, Mr. Keeton points out that considerably less thau 1 per cent, of the population is literate. As a matter of fact somo of the socalled "universities," if they are hot actually Bolshevik institutions, teach all the stock phrases uml arguments in denunciation of "Imperialism" and "unequal treaties." In this connection he makes the significant remark: —" [n China to-day it is exceedingly difficult to discover where nationalism ends and Bolshevism begins, and the Chinese themselves find it inconvenient to investigate too far." People outside China are too ready to traco the present unrest to Moscow. "It is unlikely," says Mr. Keeton, "that any group of Chinese politicians, except possibly the leaders at Canton, would seriously attempt to give practical application to Soviet principles. The absurdity of doing so in a nation which until 1911 was governed by the most' absolute of modern monarchies and with no political experience, is too Apparent."

Coming down to details Mr. Keeton is outspoken about oxtra-territoriality. On the strength of it Europeans and Americans established wide interests in China. If it is renounced before full protection of these interests is gnaran; teed the Powers will licve been guilty of a breach of trust. "The only question to bo answered, therefore, is: Ts the present condition of Chinese law such that extra-territoriality can be renounced or even modified? Not a single person who has ever studied Actual conditions of legal administration will answer 'Yes.' " Mr. Koeton is also on the side of those who hold that the foreign settlements ought not to revert to China unless they are protected by strong, perpetual guarantees. Every single concession was worthless when the foreigner took it ovar. In threequarters of a century splendid cities have arisen on mud flats, swamps, and spits of land in the middle of rivers. In conclusion, he defines the proper attitude of the foreigner in these words: "He wishes China nothing but good, and is willing to co-operate in every possible way towards . reorganisation . . . but he is at present suffering a reaction from his first idealism."