Sept. 25.
more extraordinary situation could well be imagined than that created by the Chinese Ciovernment's breaking off re-Jations with Prince Koudacheff. Ever since the Bolshevist coup d'état in Russia in Septembef 1917, the position of the old Bussian officials has been abnormal, in China as in other countries.
But this abnormality was disposed of by the legal fiction that Russia being without a Government—certainly without one that any Power had recognized—the said officials, continued to represent the Russian people. This arrangement was hardly, if at all, questioned until the defeat and death of Admiral Koltchak.
Since then the prestige of Prince Koudacheff among the Chinese has been steadily undermined by agents in Peking from the various states in Siberia controlled by the Soviet, and a few weeks ago the Verkhne-Udinsk Government, having come to terms with the Vladivostok Government, despatched to China, vie Mongolia, what purported to be a Commercial Mission headed by M. I. Yourin. For some days the latter had difficulty in obtaining direct access to the Chinese Foreign Minister. But on Septem-her 16 a communique was published by the Chinese Government stating that M. Yourin's credentials had been examined and seemed good, that Bolshevist propaganda must be guarded against, but that the anomalous position of the.old Russian. officials called for some. modus vivendi. The whole document pointed clearly to the step now taken.
The figment that M. Yourin had come to Peking merely to negotiate for the opening up of trade between Siberia and China would, in any circumstances, have been very doubtful. It has never yet been possible for Siberia "to conduct any foreign trade without the support and financing of Russia proper; the necessary machinery did not exist cast of the Urals; and it is most unlikely that Siberia is in a position to do now, after the past three wasting years, what she cauld not do unaided in the days of peace and organized government. The details, moreover, of M. Yourin's career, which we publish to-day, if accurate as we believe they are, way through which to disseminate their vicious propaganda in the world.
Doubtless there are other aims in view, but this alone is sufficient for the present to warrant the strongest possible resistance from the Allied Powers. Take the case only of Russians in Shanghai amounting now to about 5,000 souls. Plainly they cannot be left without a representative recognized by the other Consuls; equally plainly no Chinese official can be permitted to come in and function as their representative; and most plainly of all, no Bolshevist Consul is admissible inasmuch as the suggest that he was flying at much higher game than commercial privileges for a trumpery republic here to-day and gone tomorrow. In a word, the whole mission was merely 'a blind for purposes the full extent of which can as yet only be guessed at, but of which'we may well have many and sinister forebodings. If a commercial agreement only was desired, and with Siberia alone, it was quite unnecessary for the Chinese Government. to break off relations with Prince Powers have not recognized Bolshevism. By the Treaty of Petrograd, renewed in 1911, Russian extraterritoriality continues until next August, unless previously cancelled. But as Bolshevism'. is unrecognized, there is good ground for thinking that any such cancellation should also remain unrecognized by the Powers, at least as regards Shanghai and other foreign settlements in China. For while the Powers admit no rights in the so-called Government of Koudacheff. The attempt to persuade him to resign voluntarily points plainly to one part of the ultimate idea: Had his Excellency been persuaded to do s0, the Chinese Government would immediately have announced its protection of all Russians in China as a preliminary step to the cancellation of their extraterritoriality. There can be little doubt that this was the bait held out by the Soviet Government in return for recognition of themselves. Once surrendered, extraterritoriality would be as difficult for Russia to recover as it will be for Germany, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia or any other treaty-seeking Power. The fact of these countries being excluded from the privilege would be a powerful lever in years to come to move other Powers to cancellation. Meanwhile, from the Russia, they do not question the rights of the Russian people and unless M. Grosse is told by Prince Koudacheff to shut up his Consulate, he remains just as much the representative of the Russian people. in Shanghai whom the Allied Powers know and deal with as he has always been, and as such is entitled to their support and to the continued assistance of the Municipal Police. Such we urgently hope, will. be the attitude of the foreign Legations, and we trust that the various Chambers of Commerce of Shanghai will strengthen the hands of their representatives by voicing plainly the disapproval that the whole foreign community must feel of any change in the Russian status, until Russia enjoys such a government as the Powers can recog. nize. Already strong and formal. would afford an immense gate- China taking control in the Rus-Soviet's point of view, China protests have been made against
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.