Oct, 13, In his profoundly significant! address yesterday afternoon at the Union Club, Sir Frederick Whyte spoke to, the British community in China as a Briton and to the Chinese as a friend.
The analogies which he drew between the India which he Jmows so well and the China which he is only now studying, are important in themselves, but! to us in Chind, the vitality of his conclusions appears more in the reasoned, systematic approach which he made to the development and practice of! modern British policy in China. To the Chinese and to most foreigners living in China, this in reality the Middle Kingdom. All else really matters little and all else must be sacrificed to the particular needs of this place. But to the British Empire, China can be but one country, @ very] important country it is true, with ich the Empire has to come contact and concerning] which it must determine its policy, That policy cannot be fixed in its day by day relationships because they are inevitably opportunistic and depend upon the character of the chang which are taking place in China, but in their more permanent manifestations, in their relationship to the whole British foreign policy, Britain's attitude toward China' is fixed. Sir Frederick's appeal to his audience then was to try to understand that policy and to respond to it.
In the first place, Sir Frederick clearly enunciated what may be regarded in some quarters Shanghai as a heretical doctrine, namely, that Nationalism China is here to stay, that it is part of a tremendous, Nationalistic reaction in Asia to impulses which commenced in Europe and are only now making themselves vivid in their Asiatic implic tions. Once we recognize that Nationalism as a human, historic cal movement is the same in China as it was in France and in Germany and in Italy, as it is to-day in Turkey and Persia and India, then we are forced by sheer logic to review our own views of Chinese Nationalism. We who live in China witness daily the destructive phases of the Nationalist revolt in China, We suffer from this movement in the destruction of our property and the constant danger to our lives. Nevertheless. if we are faced with a permanent condition, we are required at any' rate to understand the process which brought that condition into being and we axe required to discover what part we as individuals, and our Governments, as. states which are in contact} with China, can do to lessen our wu, sufferings and those of the Chinese people, with whom we! te to be on-terms of friendship, not; only at this moment, when Bare wren Nationalism: hes ditions are 0 bad, but in the the era of abuses' and dissension and corruption has ceased and reconstruction, up-building, development has taken the stage.
Sir Frederick Whyte brought the message to the British com-Jmunity in China that the attitude of the British Goverm wards China and towards world was liberal. Comparing Joseph Chamberlain, the father, and Austen Chamberlain, the Json, he traced the movement of British imperialism from what we in the East like to term diehardism to liberalism, to. such a tendency as is usually referred to, in Europe as the spirit of Locarno, that is, the spirit of forgetting the evils of the past and remembering only the need for friendship, ce-operation, and peace in the future, This change lof potiey-is not something which statesmen sat down and thought} out, but is' slow, gradual accumulation of evidence of the more democratic control of Brit-imperial and foreign policy.
is the people of Great Britain who are liberal. It is the people of Great Britain who seek to show good-will to all nations and. who hope to win their friendship in return. Whatever the immediate response of the British' Government may be to a situation requiring a day-by-day protection of British life and property in all parts of the world may be, British policy is liberal; it is friendly; it recognizes. na: tional aspirations within the Empire and among the nations out~ side the Empire. Even now, after months of suffering in China, after a constant persecution of British subjects in China, fatter a pernicious propaganda against British subjects and British goods in China, British! policy remains liberal. Sir Frederick's message to the Chinese people is then that the British people and the British Government in response to the de-Imocratic control which the British people exercise, are still liberal in their views towards China and still hope to be the friends of the Chinese people.
Professor Webster on Tuesday jand Sir Frederick Whyte yesterday used the figure of Sir Austen Chamberlain to prove the character of British liberalism, Professor Webster, in discussing the League of Nations, showed how] international responsiveness engendered by the meetings of the League produced out of might be regarded as a most fhide-bound conservative Minister Jot Foreign Affairs a liberal' statesman who was one of the prinefpal authors of the Locarno Treaty. Similarly, Sir Frederick implied that the author of the
China, the Minister who address-_ new Policy of friendship for ed the Christmas Day Note to) China, was this same member of a family of the most conservative traditions, Through Sir Austen, a conservative mouth pie liberal nation gave expressions to a policy of recognition of historical changes, to a policy of good-will and friendship.
But what has been the re-[sponse on the part of the Chi nese? The Chinese do not even believe the bond fides of the British doctrine. They seek some hidden motive, some deceit, some cause to justify their incredul China's unresponsiveness has a basis in the historical relationships between China and the West, and more recently, we know that it is in a measure due to the promptings of Soviet Russia, But just as China expects other countries to recognize the changing conditions here and to revise their policies in accord: ance with such' changes, s0 it is to be: expected that the other nations must anticipate. that China will recognize and _welcome such revisions of their policies as are beneficial to China. Thus, we have the example of the British Government enunciating. the Christmas Day Note without a single favourable
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.