THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, MAY 3, 1927. "HANDS OFF CHINA."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19626, 3 May 1927, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, MAY 3, 1927. "HANDS OFF CHINA."

It was a banner with a strange device that was borne by the Berlin marchers on May Day. " Hands off China" was its inscription. Just what it had to do with the procession's purpose is not clear. Probably the banner-bearers would not have been able to explain coherently even to each other. May Day's observance in Germany, as in Russia, has been chiefly celebrated by religious and race riots. This apparent solicitude for an alien people's welfare is therefore somewhat incongruous. Even the day's more recent association with Labour celebrations of a shortened working-day or demands for one still shorter does not make the device more explicit. China's aspiration is not for leisure, but for freedom to work. Probably, the choice of the motto was not so much intelligent as emotional. A vague idea that the Chinese are being oppressed and exploited by the horrible foreign capitalist was at the root of the display, an idea easily maintained so long as it is vague. The same nebulous notion inspires the same catch-cry elsewhere than in Berlin. Without any resolute effort to find and examine the actual facts, it is assumed that the treaty Powers have always been, still are, and will continue to be, interested in China only for their own selfish gain. From that assumption it is quite simple to proceed to a declamatory demand that these Powers should at once pack up and leave China to herself. It is a plain and gay doctrine, calculated to sway mobfeeling ; but, like most cries of the kind, it will not bear quietly practical thought. Proclaimed by Germans, it arouses echoes that are positively comic. Their country's interests in China have been clearly mercenary. Long ago, in the days of the Hanseatic League, Germany was commercially represented in Canton. Frederick the Great established an Asiatictrading company which sent two ships there, and Prussian vessels were then often in the China Sea. After the Franco-Prussian War German trade in those waters became considerable. Tsingtao was forcibly seized by Germany in ISO 7, in order to provide an effective economic hinterland in Shantung, which was commercially developed with great vigour. There is no call to castigate Germany for this policy: it meant gain for China as well as Germany. But when it is remembered that Germany is now, as much as then, bent on increasing her commerce with China, all the facts show her to be no less anxious to exploit that country's trading possibilities than is any other commercially-minded Power, say the United States. In the loose use of the term " treaty Powers " to-day as inclusive only of those with existing extraterritorial rights, Germany is not usually reckoned as one. But she is a treaty Power to all intents and purposes. On May 20, 1921, she entered into a specific commercial agreement with China, which she frankly values as a basis for further compacts. She has large investments, in the way of | gold loans dating from 1596 and reorganised in 1913, and loans on rail- I way construction, and since July 4, I 1924, has accepted China's under- | taking for full payment of interest j and principal. There was a period j during which she wtis without such financial relations, but it was not of

her seeking. It was introduced by China's declaring war on her in 1917, by which her share of the Boxer indemnity—excepting Russia's, the largest share, amounting to more than a fifth of the whole —was definitely held in suspense; and it was under the compulsion of the Treaty of Versailles, not of her free and generous will, a a her Foreign Minister's recent statement would seem to suggest, that she renounced her extraterritorial rights. Credit must be given to her Foreign Minister for sincerity and statesmanship in his urging that " neutrality" should be maintained toward China, but his is only a voice in a chorus, not a protesting cry against others' attitudes. He was careful to associate Germany in this with other Powers, and Britain's declaration of 1902 to the same effect shows that he can claim no originality for his thesis.

So far from being determined to take any advantage of China, these other Powers have been remarkably magnanimous. The history of the

Boxer indemnity presents an excellent case in point. Although justly due, this was years ago recognised as a burden, and relief has been voluntarily given. All demands' for payment were suspended for five years from 1917 by the treaty Powers —except Russia, which gave consent only to the suspension of a third of the payments ; and the payments have long been devoted to purposes, mainly educational, of direct benefit to the Chinese themselves. It can be conscientiously said also that the Governments of the foreign Powers with interests in China have consistently striven to aid her in her dire financial stress. The Tariff Conference at Peking was the outcome of their anxiety for her, and it is undeniable that its very promising findings failed because of China's unwillingness to take steps to give them effect. Further proof of their goodwill is furnished by their continuance to give her an honourable place in the League of Nations, although she has done nothing toward paying her accepted share of the expenses of the League. Those who raise the parrot cry of " Hands off China" conveniently ignore such facts as these. They further ignore the patent facts that extreme patience has been shown by the Powers in the recent troubled days, and that every assurance has b§en given to China that, as soon as she is willing and ready, they are fully prepared to revise in her interests the treaties regarded by so many of her people, rightly or wrongly, as inimical to her progress. The hands that are on China are helping hands, though their ministry must include some measure of restraint against her attempts to commit national suicide.