Looking through innumerable [cuttings from British newspaper London and provincial, dealing with the war in China, one is struck with the fact that no one really understands or has presented the situation xo well as the author of the! Hittle poem we reproduced yesterday from the "Morning Post." On the' other hand it is refreshing to find that the general state of China and the issues of the present con-ict are better comprehended than. was once the case and, though Jclection hax now crowded out China news, one may hope somethin; from' that fact for the future. Everybody is much struck with the Jdisinelination of Chinese troops. to fight in the rain and their love of umbrellas. Well, the writers evid-nutly don't know what rain can be in China, and if Chinese carry umbrellas it is because they have mackintoshes. The most amusing misinformation usually centres round Shanghai. For example, one London paper:
A perfectly-equipped fire-brigade is manned by young Englishmen from banks and mercantile houses, and, owing to the inflammable iter of f the buildings, oft hax a big job in hand. Shanghai a city of pleasure as well as commerce. The Bund, with its streams Jof smart cars and rieshas, is almost an equivalent to the Hyde Park "Drive." The English Club hax lone of the finest club-houses in the arid, with a handsome suite of rooms set apart for Indy gu jand the Country Club is a fashion fable rendezvous for both sexes fatter business hours. The Opera far superior to the Mun Hall with which Hongkong has to be content for its theatrical shows, and the Astor Hotel hat a Taagnificent ball-room, frequently used, anda restaurant at which rus that x really good Jose cook takes a lot of beat up the river to recover dissipation of the Shan This jo an extraordinary mixture! of facts out-of-date and pure im Where on earth did the cisely in July and ces not take up on residence?
The Prosperity of France A which was prominently engaged in the great war and which has achieved a condition of rebilitation and prosperity in striking contrast to the situation now obtaining in most of the other Jcountries whose peoples were engaged in the conflict, is France. The excellent economic condition of tha: country, whose policy has differed of late' years in several main rvspects from that of other is very clearly indicated in a re-Port which has been made by Mr. JR. Cahill, the Commercial Seeretary to the British Embassy la Paris. According to the report, the brilliant economic revival that took place in the carly months of 1922 has suffered no eclipse; the cotire population of France' has continued in full employment; and her production has actually and consistently been retarded by the dearth of Inbour. The reconstruction of the devastated areas has stay been accelerated and for all practical purposes of mere industrial output it may be said to have wstanee, the coal mines of Franco, ich produced only 1,500 tons of coal in January, 1919, in May of this year produced over 14 million tons, and the total output of the expected soon to exceed the pre-war figure. Equipment has vastly improved, and a vital deficiency in the French raw material yroduction—her under-production of coke—has, under the spur of the cutting off of Ruhr supplies, been so far repaired that France now produces at the rate of 5,000,000 tons a year, or nearly 2,000,000 tons more than in 1919. French foreign trade continues to be ex tremely active; in 1922 it had pasied the pre-war figures as regards Volume, and in the first six months of this'year exports exceeded those of the same' period of the preceding year by 2,300,000 tons. France is Prospering industrially and econ-comically in almost every direction, and in only one aspect has this great economic revival been retarded—the systematic development of the porte, waterways, roads and water-power, which have been hampered by lack of funds. The French nation hax achieved something of it might well be proud, and in which it has set a shining ex-Ample to. other nations, Grea Britain not excluded.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.