THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1926. THE OUTLOOK IN CHINA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19512, 16 December 1926, Page 12

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1926. THE OUTLOOK IN CHINA.

1 Winter has called a halt to China's warring factions, but the situation offers little comfort to those concerned for the peace and prosperity of the nation. The Cantonese cause, withstanding all opposition and extending its northward sway, has so far succeeded as to establish its political headquarters at Wuchang. The transfer from Canton is significant. It is not an evacuation, but an occupation of an advanced strategic base. So long as this revolted southern Government had its seat at Canton, its forces were campaigners far afield, marching in provinces theoretically beyond its jurisdiction. Settled at Wuchang, it openly asserts authority over a wide region. What is described in to-day's news as "the Cantonisation of China" is brought appreciably nearer. It is profitless to speculate as to what would have happened had the rigours of winter not enforced a temporary cessation of fighting. It is enough to know that the southern army was making vigorous headway, and that now the Government it represents moves its capital far out from the old site to territory where that army fears no serious, challenge. The change argues a Cantonese triumph unqualified by any probability of retaliation. Wuchang is about six hundred miles northward from Canton and four hundred miles westward from Shanghai. Relatively to them, it is remote from the outside world; yet, with the firm hold that the southern army has now in the Yangtse valley, it is evident that a resumption of hostilities would bring these forces, by way of the river, into menacing touch with the coastal region at a point where friction with foreign Powers has already produced an inflammable condition. The fact that in the region of Wuchang are situated the great national arsenal and elaborate steelworks adds to the importance of its occupation by the Canton Government. This area, where munition industries cluster, has been coVeted by all the contending factions. Once safe in Cantonese possession,, as it seems now to be, it gives them a coign of vantage bestowing critical power. ' The outlook at the moment, then, favours the Cantonese' cause ; but it gives doubtful prospect of China's relief from harassing conflict. The interval ,of military truce compelled by winter will not be any the less charged with restiveness. Ceaselessly, although the battlefields may be quiet, the confused clash of internecine quarrels and anti-foreign hatred will continue.. The Yangtse valley, it is reasonably reported, will ring with this unhappy conflict, in which the Soviet envoy's hand is already foully busy. Unfortunately, he >is likely to find a ready welcome among the Cantonese for his antiBritish propaganda. Although Canton itself is no longer the official centre of the southern- Government, its protracted boycott of British trade is sure to be maintained with as much bitterness as ever, and inland will be carried the animosity expressed, in it. Indeed, in the removal of its headquarters to Wuchang, away from the coast, the Canton Government has given token, among other things, that it would be done with the trade of the treaty ports. Mr. Miles Lampson, the British Government's new representative, will have his hands full trying to counter the Soviet envoy's influence. His conciliatory policy, much as it deserves to succeed, will probably be interpreted as weakness, to the detriment rather than the enhancing of British prestige. The months of comparative quiet in prospect may be momentous j in international import beyond any ; period that China has yet known. The difficulties of the situation, internationally viewed, are not by any means lessened by this Cantonese success. Still is China without a central Government, save in theory. Of old' the geographical recitation ran—-"China: capital, Peking." It has long been but doubtfully true. Before the republic came, Peking was reduced to the status of a shadow capital. The old Manchu Empire had rotted at the core. It exercised authority only in name. Beneath its nominal rule grew up abuses innumerable, abuses that might have been even more scandalous but for the influence of foreign Powers, for all the charges levelled at that "interference." The republic has given no trustworthy sign as yet that it can supply a stable Government. China, on the map and in the year-books, has twenty-two provinces under Peking's central supremacy. In the realm of practical affairs, it is a tangle of rivalries and misrule, a land of warring ideals and partisan ambitions; provincial boundaries serve but as excuses for robbery in trade tolls, and Peking, away in the north, is ignored save as a subject of revolters' scoffing. But to the outside world China cannot be the object of scorn; its plight is one for pity. Yet how to help is a baffling question. The Powers have tried — not always either wisely or well. The fault, however, has not been all theirs. The Tariff Conference was a sincere and sensible effort. It failed, through China's incapacity of purpose. It found itself talking to a fog. The fog persists, yet it must be entered. With all respect to Lord Balfour, China cannot be left to work out its own salvation, either at Peking or Wuchang. The winter of civil war's quiet ought to .be a time of renewed foreign attempts to» fashion and proffer a constructive policy.;