The Hawera Star. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1927. BRITAIN AND CHINA

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 9 February 1927, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1927. BRITAIN AND CHINA

Delivered every evening by 5 o'clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby. Okaiawa. Eltham. Mangatoki. Kaponga, AU>n Hurleyville, Patea, Waverley, Moltoia, Whakamara, Ohangai, Merumere, Frasei Road and Ararata.

The reports of the Chinese Nationalists’ replies to Britain’s negotiations for a peaceful settlement of the differences between China a*nd the Powers appear on the surface, as they come to us, to show either inability or unwillingness to understand the Western nations’ point of view on such questions as the protection of their subjects, their property, and their rights under treaties. Britain has shown that she is willing -to go a. long way in negotiating for readjustment of treaty rights, but apparently there is something in the contention of those who profess to know, and should know the Chinese mind, .that generosity is mistaken for weakness by the Chinese. The Nationalists through their Foreign Minister, Eugene Chen, arc continuing the policy which they have consistently followed throughout of refusing to recognise, that the Powers, and particularly Britain. have been anything less than the aggressors. They have missed no opportunity of making Britain appear as a grasping, ruthless nation which will stop at nothing to further its imperialistic aims. Britain has been made the scapegoat in Chinese eyes in the apportionment of blame for any suffering which has occurred in clashes between mobs and military forces, and now her efforts to secure a settlement by negotiations are being scorned because she has sent troops and munitions of war to China. It is not to be thought for a moment that Chen and the other educated leaders of a vast and ignorant population fail for one moment to see that Britain is not playing a double game of diplomacy backed up by a readiness to indulge in force, but it can be readily understood how their assumption of ignorance of Britain’s motives pays them by stiffening the morale of the masses who may be called upon to carry the ambitious Chou and others to greater power by their sacrifices. The declaration that China was always Teady to protect foreign lives and property in Shanghai and the pretence at belief that that assurance should have been sufficient to warrant Britain in keeping her troops at home is so much eyewash which does not convince anybody outside China, if it does that much, and it must be accepted only as the Chinese equivalent for open defiance. There is little doubt, judging from the stories brought .back from China by travellers, -that the minds of the people in the storm centres have been inflamed to a state which would make hostilities welcome to them as offering an opportunity to oust the foreigner, and in the event of such an outbreak the sympathy or apathy of the majority of China’s millions would provide no safeguard to foreign lives and property. The ranging of America and Italy alongside Britain 'provides encouraging evidence that Britain’s motives arc not misunderstood by the rest of the world, .whatever may be the interpretation official China cares to place upon them.