About two months ago a Chinese pilot, losing control of his machine, dropped into a group of soldiers and injured several. The others proceeded to give the airman a thorough beating. A few weeks ago, just about coincidental with Dr. Yen's determination to finance justice out of Customs funds, another Chinese pilot landed well within the flags and bowled over a group of strolling ruffians. He was promptly set upon and nearly killed. The Fengtienites remarked that had he been a foreigner they would have killed him. They then gave the Chinese directors of the school to understand that they would have no more flying, that they had all agreed to keep an eye upon the hangers, and machine attempted to ily, would open fire upon it. This settled the matter; the Chinese pilots had no stomach for the game. A strike among the unpaid mach mists intervened and saved the face of the Government Aviation Bureau and of the Chinese pilots; but there would have been no flying anyway. Thus endeth commercial aviation when it works at cross. purposes with the almighty soldier.
Meanwhile the pilot whom the soldiers assaulted, while operating within bounds, may or may not die. Before they released him they forced him to sign a document admitting that he landed out of bounds although scores of witnesses know that he was well within the flags. Now if Dr. Yen or Mr. Liang Shih-yi had already spent several millions of Customs money upon the further codification of China's laws, upon the education of lax students, upon the creation of model courts here and there, and upon the employment of foreign lega! advisers, would they ho in any better position to guarantee this nilot justice, or to ensure the unmolested operations of the flying school This is an isolated case and is only selected because it happens te synchronize with the government's determination to spend money on judicial reform and because its setting is on Peking's front door step as it were.
A Jupiciary Witsovr Avtsority.
The point is that, as China is now constituted, you cannot buy judicial reform with any amount of money. A magistrate, as and wise as Solomon, with machinery of a perfect Jegal system: at his command, who could not arrest the perpetrator of a crime in the street before his yamen, try him without fear of influence or force, and send him to certain punishment, would be an expensive supernumerary upon whom it would be folly to expend public funds for the improvement of his yamen, for his further training or for the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.