Mar. 4.
We publish to-day from a valued Chinese correspondent an article of strong protest against the recent action of certain student organizations in trying to put pressure on Mr. Tang Shao-yi to circulate a telegram advocating the abolition of the Peace Conference and the adoption of some other means to settle the intolerable situation."
The fact that a Southern patriotic society is said to be advocating a resumption of hostilities makes the students' action all the more mischievous, our correspondent thinks, and he adds, privately, that both reports have caused great consternation among Chinese. The article is of special interest in that it represents, as we happen to know, the feelings of a large class of Chinese who are not ordinarily articulate. That they should feel deep concern at any rumour of renewed fighting is easily understood, for it is precisoly they, or men like them in the interior, who suffer most through the marching and counter-marching of the licensed ruffians who are so very careful not to get within reach of each other's bullets. But that our correspondent and his friends can put any faith in the so-called peace conference which General Wang I-tang has been endeavouring to promote in Shanghai, is rather difficult to understand. No one needs, or should need, to be told that there iz no real issue between the people of North China and the people of South China. And it is further difficult to believe that there is any real divergence of opinion between the military leaders of the South and those of the North. What Mr. Tang Shao-yi suspected was that he was simply being made a catspaw by the Southern militarists and that any peace which he might be induced to sign would be a piece of camouflage to cover up, under a pretence of concessions to the Constitutional party, a. secret agreement between the Southern and Northern militarists for the assuring of their own power and the division of any spoils that might be going from Japanese loans. Mr. Tang's method of testing the bona fides of Peking was to demand, as a preliminary to any conference, full details of every agreement entered into with Japan and the exact amount of money owed to her by China. It is now some months since General Wang I-tang announced that he was about to receive the required details from Peking and would publish them in full, but no such publication, so far as we are aware, has taken place. The position may not be precisely as Mr. Tang Shao-yi believed it to be when he refused to meet General Wang; in many respects it has probably been changed considerably by the perpetual flux of Chinese politics. But until some better name can be found for it, some description more truly indicating the real division in China, than a conference "'between North and South" we doubt whether any permanent good is likely to result from it to the vast class which our contributor to-day represents.
A Japan Marine Warehouse Company has been formed for the purpose of utilizing as "'godowns" unseaworthy wooden ships hastily built for war service. These "floating warehouses," with a capacity of 1,000 tons each, will be stationed at various ports, and will be attended by launches of 100 tons each-
A Morioka despatch to the "Asahi? says the people 0 of Motomiya-mura, Iwate district, in Morioka Prefecture, which is the birth-place of the Premier, met in the precincts of Omiya Shrine and offered prayers to the god therein enshrined for the safety of the Premier, who is now the centre of general criticism in regard to the universal franchise question, and who they think is in constant danger of being attacked by. advocates of the cause. After special prayer had been offered by a priest charge, an "omamori-frida" (charm) issued by the Shrine authorities was at once forwarded by registered mail to the Premier in Tokio in the hope that he will wear it continuously in order that he may be guarded against assaults from his enemies.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.