June 22, One of the first glimmering: of hope for a rebound from yhobia towards a ra: outlook upon foreign relations and a normal con cern for a fair name abroad, has tion of the Nanking authorities to meet the interest charg on the Shanghai-tanking Railway bonds out of the monthly earnings. also, we have heard nothing from the North of the usual attempt on the part of the Ministry of Finance to divert to other uses the Salt funds set apart for th semi-annual payment of the! Hukuang Railway coupon. All concern for China's credit it abroad is evidently not dead, when even the hitherto destruc tiv "Nationalists" are sufficiently interested in the future of China's railway system to pay the debts of existing lines that, when the time comes, the purchase of the materials for new lines will not be quite 80 difficult.
If this tendency to preserve credit and look forward to future railway Decomes fashionable through: out China it will very shortly entail all manner of reforms in present railway which will rev management, trade, no matter how absurd the political doctrines of the masters of the railways may happen to be.
Railway earnings cannot be devoted to debt service, upkeep and construction, if they all go into the war chest.
Earnings will not amount to much if the movement of coaches and trucks becomes a mili ry monopoly, subject to the petty exactions of subordinate officers of all ranks, as has been the case on some! would be doing a genuine patriot-ie service in teaching the Chinese people to expect similar reforms on all lines. Instead of having it understood that if Chiang Kai-shek took Shantung, he would turn the soldiery and the mob loose on the foreigner, impose a capital Chines industry and trade, and Jdrive all native capital into fortified ports or foreign countries,
paganda to advertise would be infinitely better pro-that railways in territory, taken over would be free from the! soldier nuisance, salaries regularly, would devote fair proportion of earnings to upkeep, another fair proportion ito the construction of branch lines and would put all available rolling stock at the disposition both Chinese and foreign merchants at reasonable freight rates.
Such publicity would! soon set the fashion and fat Tu-[pans in territories outside the'
Nationalist" sphere of influence would not be mumbling sentences from the "Three Prin ciples" in anticipation "conversion," but} would be cultivating popular favour by expatiating upon railway reforms, renovations and extensions. Any person Jgroup who can set this fashion jand advertise it be a hundred ti jes more a patrict than the malcontent who Peking correspondent's report of his interview with the new Prem.
Mi. Pan Fu, nor by his own lexplanution of how and why the change in the form of adminis tration was brought about. Perhaps it is because we know too much about Mr. Pan Fu; but his ratement seems to lack much of ithe frank.ess, honesty and courlage that characterize the old' 'Manchurian chieftain's own' [sketches of his policy and posi tion. We detect in Mr. Pan's suave explanation of the reduetions in staff, amalgamation of Jdepartments und similar economies, something very similar to ithe usual scene shifting that goes on with every change of Government in Peking, when every new. Minister advertises his reasons for putting someone jelse's friends and relatives out Jand moving in an even larger number of his own.
Changes in terminology mean lies in Peking than they do in larly other seat of government in ithe world. There is no reason ito believe, because the Ministry lof Agriculture and Commerce is now the Ministry of Agriculture jand Labour, that it will draw jupon any different sources of revenue, or dispose of its funds jit any new way, or undertake jarly new work of value. The change will probably furnish, Jemployment for some scores of */screams to an illiterate mob|alleged experts on the labour "about foreign aggression in|Problem who will evolve endless-China. ly verbose schemes on paper that na supplement to a British|Will never be applied.
journal, devoted entirely to|hange of title, however, gives Honranfa, we have just discover-warrant for the creation of the ed that in 1926, that Balkan State had 11,349 kilometres of railway roughly 7,050 miles—which is just about equivalent to the total length of the lines in China and Manchuria. Rumania is not a highly industrialized country.
It is an agricultural] state that has enjoyed independence from the Turkish Empire for 49 years only.
The area of post bellum Rumania is 159,269
Ministry of Industry, with a new! Cabinet post, secretariat and staff. Here are at least three! hundred new jobs to fill. and) three hundred new heads to conjcoct new ways of imposing taxes) jand other disabilities upon man-
Mr. Pan Fu is one of the most, likeable and one of the cleverest, men in all Chinese officialdom, land with his friends he is no jand he can get things done, but} the is not a person whom his intimates would select to institute reforms and economies. What} little thinking has been done for Chang Chung-chang in Shantung. He came into the Peking Government, moreover, as Chang! Chung-chang's nominee and to soma extent as his agent, and learn from our correspondent that the present re-adjustment in the Metropolis. was made at Chang Chung-chang's suggestion, so it is fair to infer that since the Generalissimo was sufficiently pleased with the idea to adopt it, he was also sufficiently grateful to the Shantung Tupan for putting forward such a wel-/come scheme that he also agreed to give the Premiership to the gentleman who undoubtedly did, jin this case again, whatever thinking was done.
Two weeks ago it appeared fairly certain that Chang Chung-chang was to be crowded out} jand that Sun Chuan-fang was to take his place. Such a change would have taken much of the} appeal out of Kuomintang propaganda in Shantung where a change is wanted but where the Southerners are not wanted. It would, moreover, have been a change that would have given intense satisfaction to every progressive-minded man in any of the Northern groups. Instead lof that we have Chang Chung-chang back in full favour, his amiable adviser in the Premier ship and Yang Yue-ting, friend lof the Japanese and acknowledg-led leader of all the progressives the Fengtien party, ignored jand his advice rejected. We} ican fully sympathize with the] Generalissimo in his revulsion lof feeling against further negotiations with the Southern lead-
Jers and we can understand how impertinent he thought Govern-lor Yen Hsi-shan's arrogant sugigestion that he should abandon Peking and go back to Mukden, believe in his sincerity when hho condemns all the philosophic: fal and political fripperies that the Reds have introduced, with ithe demoralization of the Chinese people as their specific end, because he is an old fashioned Chinese and has the old fashion-official conception of his position as the responsible guardian of the simple minded people. But if this new position of his has been assumed at Chang Chung-loss of face for Vu-ting and his colleagues—not to mention a possible disappoint ment for Sun Chuan-fang—it seems to us that his glory cannot be other than short-lived in Peking and also that when he again wants to retire to his bailie wick outside Shanhaikuan, he will find that there is no room {for him ther:
It has been clear enough for a long while back that neither the Chinese nor the Japanese in Manchuria have wanted Chang-Tso-lin back in Mukden. Our correspondent rightly points out alted post, virtually that of dic-that in assuming his present extator over such of China as his lannies control, he cannot return to a governorship and that if he does have to go back his posi tion will either be that of a pri vote citizen or, at most, that of, an older statesman. It would' surprise no Chinese observer, therefore, to see his successor jin Mukden work for the indeppendence of his own position by unostentatiously cutting Manchuria off from Peking, as Chang Tso-lin himself has done so often in the past, and thereby bring' about the collapse of the Feng-{tien regime in the capital, Chang. Chung-chang will have more and bitterer enemies in the Fengtien following than ever now, and it is hard to believe, in spite of any statement to the contrary, that Marsha! Sun can be pleased lor that he will devote his energies, now that he has been given control of the major Shantung [ports and has troops on two rail-Jways, to keeping Chang Chung-" chang in office.
It is small wonder, therefore, that foreigners in Peking are auch more interested in military, developments, as our correspond: ent indicates,'than in any of Mr.
schemes for political read-[justment, for the immediate fate of the Generalissimo and his whole establishment in Peking depends upon his ability to hold his military organization together and not upon the jugglery, offices, names and ranks in Peking. "As far as anyone here can see, the changes made likely to satisfy the least efficient fand useful commanders in Northern armies and to displease such men as Yang Vu-ting, Sun Chuan-fang, Yen Hsi-shan, Han Lin-chun, and many. others who are in a position to do infinite damage if they care to show their displeasure.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.