CHINESE TURMOIL

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 112, 14 May 1927, Page 17

CHINESE TURMOIL

A DISTRACTED PEOPLE

REAL ATTITUDE TO POWERS

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

VANCOUVER, 20th April.

.In- tho most notable • public utterance he has made to date, Lord Willingdon, Governor-General of Canada, drew on his six months' experience in China during 1926, as president of tho Boxer Indemnity Commission, to deliver a wholesome and encouraging message in regard to the aspirations of the Chineso people. His address,, delivered to the Canadian Club at Vancouver, was in effect a plea for sympathy for China, in the sweat and pain of her civil commotions, and especially for the great, patient, mass of toiling millions in China, ground between the millstones of revolution. It was also a \Jiearty concufreneo,with the policy of conciliation, which has guided the actions of Great Britain in the. present conflict. Lord Willingdou had already known the East, as .Governor of Bombay and Madras. He expressed pleasure at the recollection of his meeting and conference with the threo Chinese who formed part of the Indemnity Commission. It was because they proved to be such loyal friends and reasonable-minded colleagues that the Commission, was able to come to a unanimous recommendation that the fund should bo devoted to the social and educational welfare of tho Chinese. Had it not been for tho present disturbance, that recommendation would now be iv practicable operation. .He visited Pekin, Tientsin, Hankow, Nanking, and Shanghai, among other places, and had* so much kindness shown him that he found it difficult to' understand, just now, that so much anti-foreign feeling could have arisen as was being disclosed in the public Press. That some propaganda had already been under way, he was, however, cognisant.

TRUE CHINESE OPINION. "Certain propagandists in China have endeavoured, and to some extent, succeeded, "said His Excellency, "in stirring up anti-foreign feeling among the Chinese people by talking of tho Imperialistic tendencies of the foreign Powers there. From my experience, I can very sincerely say that I don't believe there is a single honest and fairminded Chinese (and I found a great many) who : thinks that any of the Powers has any imperial outlook with regard to their country' at all. They all know well that the sole desire of all the great Powers is to see peace come to their distracted country, and to help, if the Chinese want help, to build up her national life until she ) takes her proper, her important position among the nations of the world.

"Yes, and my heart went out to see those agricultural classes of China, which comprise 80 per cent, of the total of that vast population; that great aggregation of humanity which seems to have no one to befriend it; patient, law-abiding, hard-working people; in ordinary times always liable to, face ruin and destruction of their homes from floods, famine, and. bandits, and now with the added horror of being always at the mercy of those great armies of their fellow-countrymen, which are devastating the country."

During the seven years it was functioning, the Inter-Allied Military Commission pad 33,400 visits of inspection in Germany, and ordered the destruction of vast stores, including .'■ over 14,000 aeroplanes, 28,469 trench mortars, and over 100,000. machineguns.