THE LABOUR PARTY AND CHINA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20088, 3 May 1927, Page 10

THE LABOUR PARTY AND CHINA.

TO THE EDITOR. Sib, — I like the footnote to my letter of the 26th April. It is such an easy way of avoiding the unpleasant task of having to prove your case. I am “ tilting at windmills in other words, suffering from imagination. Well, maybe you are right. lam always open to learn and be sorrected- If I have misinterpreted your article, then I am prepared to offer you my humble apology, but before doing so please tell us what you did mean when you said: “Apparently taking its cue from the I.L.P. at Home, it easily adopted an attitude that is more or less anti-British?” In what sense are we to understand you used the phraao “ antiBritish”? Was it to denote the patriotic motive of the N.Z.L.P. Conference or its unpatriotic motives? Are we to infer from your footnote that this phrase “ anti-British,” in the sense in which it has been used by you in your article against the N.Z.L.P., is not an accusation of unpatriotism and that one can be “ easily ” anti-British and patriotic at the same time? Of course, it is quite possible for a Chinaman to be “ antiBritish ” and loyal to his native land, but who has ever heard of an Englishman being “ easily ” “ anti-British” and loyal as mell? Have your. Sir? Amother windmill I am tilting at is charging you with having said that the Nationalist Party wish to drive the foreigners bag and baggage out of China. No doubt it is a “windmill,” but' it is one of your own manufacture; for do you not say: “No doubt Mr Eugene Chen and those who would like to drive the British and all other foreigners, bag and baggage, out of China would, if they heard of it, find much encouragement in this resolution.” Now, Mr Eugene Chen and those who are associated with him are Nationalists, and yout inclusion of Mr Chen’s name was intended by you to implicate the Chinese Nationalist Party in the desire to drive the foreigners, bag and baggage, out of China. I suggest that not one of your readers who perused your article on the above subject, published on the 22nd April, took any other meaning out of the sentence quoted above but the one I took. I further suggest that you meant that meaning to he taken out of it. In your footnote you say; “Nor was it said by us that it was the policy of the Nationalist Party in China to drive the foreigners, bag and baggage, out of the country, but that has been the cry of many of its followers, inflamed by the anti-foreign agitators, and probably incited by the Communist element.” Now, China has a very severe foreign problem. It is the Nationalist Party only that is agitating against the foreign policy in China. This you are well acquainted with, therefore your statement that Mr Eugene Chen and those who would liko to drive the British, etc., can have reference to no other but the Nationalist Party. The inclusion of the Communists does not help you in tho least since they arc members of the Nationalist Party.

Why does the balance of my letter call for no comment? Cannot you publish the pronouncement of the British Government, in which it states that it is prepared to accede to the just demands of the Nationalist Party in China, and by doing so confound the New Zealand Labour Party and your correspondent? Would I be right in suggesting that you cannot find such a statement, and that the British Government is not likely to make one until the Chinese Nationalists are strong enough to enforce their demands? I suggest, further, that the policy of the foreign Government is antagonistic to the principles of the League of Nations, and belies their pronouncements that nations have a right to self-determination and their desire to maintain the peace of the world-—I am, etc.. .DIPLOMATICUS. May 2.