In @ telegram thie week ported that Arthur Tough, formers!
GVEA, Secretary in Peking, had ated tu epcech it Amerion that further sce ofan American the subject, we append here ise of the tater war 4s an internal war sat the destruction of the unity of a State and gives rise. to belligerent rights of the contending. parties when the movement becomes. serious and lasting. Belligerent Fights are granted to parties toa civil war for the sake of humanity' and justice and to secure the rights of neutral 'The recognition of the parties in a civil war is a question of into! national. policy, but the contending yartics having' been once acknowledged og belligerents, the rel of the parties with regard to neutrals fare the same as those of a war be-5 tween States.
'A foreign Power may assist a friendly State to repress rebellion and is not allowed to aid rebels, but when the insurgent party. has stieeceded in creating a govern ment of its own choice, the foreign State may enter into neutrality relations with the seceding party: with: out unfriendliness to the original '(England recognized the Sourthern American Confederacy and sided them. This was not an act of war, against the United States in acsisti lion because the United recognized the Southern a belligerent by blocked. ing their ports. A. sovereign States does not blockade its own ports).
Until the fact of a new State is decided by the issue of the struggle, the position of neutrals is a delicate one.
Theoretically, (1) the relation, if the foreign Power stands aloof, (and that is the condition in China) is not that of neutrality between States, but of neutrality between Parties, one of which is a State and the'other trying to become a State, (which party in China is a State and/ which party is trying to become a State); (2) the foreign Pow:1, there. fore, cannot plead the of neutrality for treating both parties alike, for one xan ack State and the other is not. {whatever favours it grants' to the cruisers of a friendly State, it not bound to grant to the revlters, for by so doing it admits their right to prey on the commerce of its friends—which only State; can do: (3) In'a certain sense the foreign Power must regard the revolters as belligerents, entitled to all those rights which humanity demands, as that of asylum for troops or vessels in distress, of fleeing from a superior Power—the same sorts of rights which would be granted to political coxiles. The vessels of such revolters cannot be regarded ax piratical, for their motive is to establish n now State, while that of pirates ly plunder.
Under the above definition of eivit war which comes from Fersuson's International Law (the matter parenthesis, is my own) it would seem that there was no civil war in China, Certain military leavers are warring among themselves for place and Power. Or would you ray. that the Christian General was the recognized Government of China and Wu and Chang were rebels seeking to set up a State of their own? They weren't. They were not revolters secking to set up a Govern ment of their own, They were trying to capture control of a State already existing.
Chang Tso-lin, who to all intents and purposes has declared his independence from Peking, has never declared himself and his provinces an independent or sovereign State though he succeeded long ago in his war for independence from Peking.
T can find nothing in international Taw which exactly covers the condition in China to-day, These differ-Jent military leaders that have control" are in fact independent of each other and independent of any sovereign State recognized by the Powers a China, yet none of them have de-lared! themselves as independent sovereign States or established a de octo Government,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.