The Hawera Star. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1927 THE CHINESE PROBLEM.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 23 February 1927, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1927 THE CHINESE PROBLEM.

Delivered every evening by 5 o’olook in Hawera. Manaia. Normanby, Okaiawa. Eltham. Mangatoki, Kaponga, Altm. Hni'leyville, Patea, Waverley, Mokoia, Vvhakamara, Okangai, Merbmere. Frasei Road and Ararata.

The .‘innounccmcnt that, .Britain has come to terms with the Chinese Nationalists regarding the control of the foreign concessions at Hankow does not bring with it that assurance that all is well in 'China, so far as British interests are concerned, which we would have been prepared to take more or less for granted a few days ago. The issue in that troublous country has been further clouded by the more recent news of the march of the Cantonese upon Hangchow. Though the British Foreign Office is not prepared to admit,' upon the evidence before it, that the attacking force is actually in occupation, it is quite evident that this unexpected break-through of the Cantonese has proved a blow to the hopes of those who had looked to a settlement of the concession dispute as a decided step towards the achievement of something approaching .peace in China. It is the avowed 'policy of the Bowers to allow China to settle her internal dissension in her own way; their only concern has been to protect their treaty rights in that country, with the government of the day. Up till the present Britain has refused to accord greater recognition to the Nationalists than to the Peking Government and has forwarded to the latter copies •of the correspondence which has passed between her own representatives and the former party. The most recent advice is that the Peking Government has offered to open negotiations with Britain, with a view, it may be assumed, to arriving at an agreement similar to that concluded with Mr. Chen. Following upon the announcement of the settlement of the differences between the Nationalists and Britain comes advice that the Northerners, through Dr. Wellington Koo, have expressed their readiness to negotiate with Britain for a settlement. Such eagerness, if it does really exist, suggests that the basis of settlement with the Nationalists provides substantial concessions to Chinese demands, and colour is lent to this suggestion by Sir Austen Chamberlain’s latest speech, in which he declared tha Britain was prepared to concede to China the right to retain a preponderance of voting powtr on the elected body which it was proposed to appoint administer affairs in Hankow. If the defeat of Sun Chuan Fang’s forces had not been accomplished by the Cantonese, and so further complicated the situation, British public interest would have been concentrated upon the outcome of the negotiations with Peking, but the threat of an extension of the Cantonese invasion gives rise to fears that British troops might even now have to be employed, not in opposition to those with whom she has just completed an agreement, nor in taking sides in China’s internal disputes, but in protecting her own subjects from another Chinese force which owes no allegiance to the party which lias promised to afford adequate protection to British subjects, and British interests.