Oct. 1.
QuaLITY yatiier than quanti 1," says Miss Fung in ber article to-day on the needs of Chinese universities. We would, venture to claim the phrase fair description for our special memorial of the fifteenth am versary of the Chinese Republic. Although on less extended scale than some we have undertaken in the past, we make bold to say that we have never produced one of so much interest and actual ity; while, for any man of thought, what has been written casts abundant, though indirect, light on what has been left unsaid. If we may say so, our, contributors have written with a sincerity and a sense of realities only valuable in itself, but hopeful indication of things, to come, We thank them.
While speaking of the republican anniversary, no one, course, pretends now that China is in truth a republic.—That] would be too much straining of facts for the kindest or the most] brazen "face-saver." But it is contended that what was born of the Manchus' downfall contains the germs of the republican idea, in the sense of an ultimate substitution of liberal for autocratic government. this connexion Dr. C. C. Wu's article on "Aims of the Kuomintang" deserves attention, claims, and with justice, that it is "the only political party in China which has a continuous history from the revolution." We would go further and say that the Kuomintang is the only purty which has set up a government that seems to embody the vital principle that "the King never dies." Other provinces have had periods of more beneficent rule than Canton's, but it has always been "one-man" rule, In Canton alone is there an appearance of continuity of principle independent of changes personnel, To say that is not) at all to imply that the Kuomintang and Canton are free from criticism, Dr. Wu says that the foreign policy of the Kuomin-! tung is to be friendly to those, who are friendly to it. But cannot help thinking.that his! passionate wishes for the future have made him forgetful of the There are episodes in that for which the Kuomintang will some day come to blush. When, for example, a foreign, hospital or school is violently expropriated by a gang of buck cancering roughs; when even the! Chinese patients are turned out! neck and crop regardless of their; condition; when the foreign! diacters and teachers, whose sole' motive in coming to China was 'a do her good, are pelted, through the streets with mud and abuse} and when the Sup-rome Government in Canton remains as apathetic about right-! ing the injustice as its local ials were to stop it at the} outset; then we say that that Government is not true the policy of being friendly to those who are friendly to it. Episodes "f the kind mentioned and too! many others explain. why the foreigner clings so desperately to the so-called unequal treaties. Not any thought of humiliating' China, but the mere instinct of self-preservation is hi: motive.
So far from wishing to keep her in an-inferior position, foreigners would be most happy to see China conquering her internal difficulties.and thereby automatic, cally taking her rightful place in the world, and the question of treaties would, as automatic ically, solve itself. It is not Nationalism's aims which have awakened mistrust, but its methods. Against this, much may: be forgiven, in the wretched' state of affairs now prevailing in China, The history of the past five years, particularly of, the past sixteen months, is ample proof that the Powers most sincerely desire to be friendly to China and only wait for her to respond.
Dr. Ting's article indirectly shows a keen perception of the premises on which revision of treaties depends and offers an unrivalled example of what friendly and liberal-minded cooperation can produce. In the negotiations over the Mixed Court, each side wanted certain things and it was due to the lingness of either to see the other's point of view that an agreement was reached which might well be taken as a model in all future dealings! on questions at issue. respect of Miss Agnes Fung's article on the increase of universities in China and the faults they reveal, it seems to be a lo of republics to love grand titles, perhaps because they are supposed to deride grand people. Not one in a hundred of the so-called universities of China deserves the name if indeed it deserves to exist at all, Here is urgent work for the reformed bearing in mind what the present younger generation in China must mean to her future.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.