DICTATORSHIPS AND MOBS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 14, 16 July 1937, Page 8

DICTATORSHIPS AND MOBS

Both the ferment in China and the

threatening situation in Europe depend on unknown (and perhaps incalculable) factors. The unknown factor in Europe is the mind of Governments; in China it is the mind of the population of North China, especially where, the common people have actually felt Japanese encroachment. , Probably there is, in Europe, no great block of population that wants war; but it may be that such a population exists in China, and that boiling point, under Japanese pressure, has at last been reached. If ever a Government has

proved its inclination to temporise, the Nanking Government has done that; but thereby it has added some fuel to the fire of Chinese resentment, and the question now is whether the popular urge for a desperate trial of strength with Japan will be too strong even for prudent Nanking. That is why, according to the Tokio correspondent of "The Times," "the governing factor of the crisis is the Nanking Government," which hopes that it will not have to make a final choice between diplomatic courses and a popular clamour for war, but which may now be compelled to choose, with fateful results. How shall a quailing Government justify itself before large masses of people1 whose present state of mind is compared in Japan with Boxerism? On the other hand, how can big swords stand up to modern armaments? Governments create Manchukuos and Jehols; populations create the popular reaction. It is not yet known whether Governments will erect a Manchukuo in Middle or Eastern Europe; but the mind and intentions of several European Governments are under the suspicion of Western observers, influenced by events in Spain. It might be thought, at first glance, that the minds and actions of Western Governments arc more calculable than are the "psychology" and violences of several millions of nationally excited Chinese, largely illiterate. But, in practice, this assumption may not be sustained. By the time that the intrigues and propaganda of European Governments have distorted racial or class grievances out of all resemblance to their real shape, the drift of events in cultured Europe becomes no more amenable to considerations of reason and responsibility than is a psychological wave in China. Governmental manoeuvring can create a Manchukuo in Middle or Eastern Europe as easily as in China, and with quite incalculable consequences. What !may be called the Manchukuo technique has even more opportunities ! in "Balkanised" Europe than in Asia, 'and the ethnographic problems and irredentist grievances offer a convenient pretext. So it would be a mistake to assume that the unknown factors swinging on "the BerlinRome axis" are any more calculable than they are in China, or less charged with risks hostile to lhe world's peace. A peace that^ relies either on a mob or on a dictator trusts the frailest of reeds.

General Chiang Kai-shek is the very reverse of a Hitler or a Mussolini. If the Chinese mass mind rushes him into war, it will be not because he primed it with inflammatory propaganda. The war movement in China cannot be charged with any lack' of spontaneity, due to such Nanking propagandist methods as are practised by the dictatorship in Germany or Italy. A Hitler or a Mussolini leads his wars from in front; but the Nanking Government, if it leads the threatened war at all, will lead it from behind. In fact, the indications at the moment are that General Chiang Kai-shek, like the British author of the new Nonintervention proposals, is fighting a hard-pressed rearguard action in favour of peace; only if he loses this rearguard action will Chiang Kaishek appear in the militant guise which European dictators, with far less excuse, love to assume. But, with all these fundamental differences, the European and the Chinese crises are alike in that no prophet can foretell their ultimate issue as to peace or war. The task of such a prophet would be even harder than that of the gas-masked Dutch scientist who, on Australia's invitation, will look the Rabaul craters m the eye and predict their future. Science does hold out some sort of a hope that man may know volcanoes, but science is incapable of enabling man to know himself.