To what extent this might now form the excuse I am not in a position to ascertain, but there is no doubt that in that year and in a part of 1922, this afforded the military occasion to fire in-. discriminately on all foreign ships and the students an opportunity to indulge in a childish diatribe against the foreigner in general. New and stricter Customs laws have since been brought into force, especially as regards navigation, where steamers were: very liable—and not always by their own fault—to sink junks which capsized in their wash.
The present fault lies in the fact that advancement has been too rapid for a slow-thinking people. Plunged in their own troubles, they have failed to grasp. the benefit of foreign trade and cannot understand that any such benefit should arise from the intervention of the foreigner. Obviously it is impolitic to create suspicion in a country seething with civil war.
Western enterprise must bide its time and work quietly unit the day arrives when the Surden of trouble may be lifted from the back of Szechuanese, and this magnificent province may play its part in commerce and industry of the entire world.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.