Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Over 50 Years.] TUESDAY, JANUARY 3, 1928. IN CHINA TO-DAY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 3 January 1928, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Over 50 Years.] TUESDAY, JANUARY 3, 1928. IN CHINA TO-DAY.

A correspondent to the. London “Times" recently described the position in China to-day as one of “stale-mate.” In a sense the description was apt, inasmuch as affairs seem to have come to a standstill, so far as the general state of the country is concerned. Civil war has become chronic, and chaos a commonplace, and that being so it would be wonderful, indeed, if any progress towards a happy issue could be looked for. But in another sense, the term “stale-mate” is in the highest degree inappropriate. For stalemate implies a state of immobility in all the pieces taking part in the game, and that is a condition very far removed, indeed, from the one prevailing in China. Not. only are all the pieces there in a state of violent agitation all over the board, but they so constantly change their very nature and.standard of importance that the game has become too bewildering even for the looker-on, despite the advantages proverbially ascribed to him, to follow with any hope of comprehension. To-day he. who was king but yesterday, is a pawn; and the chances are that to-morrow he may, if he be fortunate enough to retain his head at all, wear on it once again the emblem of authority and power. We have had but little word of China for some weeks, and such as we have had has been but fragmentary and nebulous. The great National movement has lapsed into a confusion of petty struggles and jealousies, wherein the personal advantage of each contestant is held of more worth than the common weal; it has degenerated into a welter of blood, and rapine, and miserable ambitions, wherein its original nobilities have ben entirely lost. Just as the jealousy and personal antagonism between Chiang Kai-shek and Feng Yu-hsiang destroyed the hopes of local Nationalism qt Canton, so have the internecine jealousies and antagonisms of a multiplicity of such as they destroyed the hopes of Nationalism throughout the whole country. Or, if not destroyed them, at least so scotched them that it will be long, indeed, before they can revive.