Last week the Ministry of War submitted to the Reorganization Conference a memorandum on. the strength of China's Army, and this showed 72 divisions and 14 mixed tion has been offered in the fact that the workers and their re-Presentatives are afraid to step forward lest they be arrested from police molestation as long. as they limit their activities in such a way that the peace is not disturbed. scale, according to the duration of captivity. List "C," on which the Chinese "ask for reduction, overs reimbursement of amounts spent in sending relief to the prisoners. How and taken to the Mixed Court There may be objections to mueis is claimed on this score where they will be required to appear before the Assessor of that nation, whose flag the mill flies. This' fear is perhaps un-Justified. It is hard to believe that any consular officer would take advantage of his position to punish men unjustly. But the fear exists and it leads to the insertion of the national issue in all labour troubles in the Settlement. When a strike takes Place, the nationality of the ownership of the mill becomes 4 factor and sympathetic strike movements develop based on the theory that if sufficient pressure is brought on the fellow-countrymen of the mill-owners, the workers will win. Telegrams are sent to the governments of the mill-owners. Friendly or unfriendly governments are a ed to interfere. The dispute 8 to be one of wages and and becomes a national dispute, a question of international politics. Such a conver-ion harms the worker more than it does the employer. For in the agitation which ensues his real grievances are forgotten, his Purpose in risking his economic existence is overlooked; only the broader considerations of national pride, national integrity and national self-interest are brought in play. Furthermore, whatever sympathy outsiders might feel for the workers, they naturally resist any stigma upon their flag or upon the flag of a friendly nation, As many of these questions are the concern off all foreigners alike, the possibility of friendly intervention on behalf of the workers becomes impossible, In many western countries, the governments have provided agencies for the settle ment of differences between employers and labour. The ar-bit ration boards have often settled outstanding difficulties even before the labourers went on strike. In some places, employers' associations and labour unions have created joint boards which sit as courts in industrial disputes, These boards inva ably include a representative of the public, whose vote usually determines their decision, In a word, every effort is made to find " means for obtaining fair play for both capital and labour without the use of the fearful weapons, the strike and the lockout, both of which invariably Prove as disastrous to one side as to the other.
There can be no reason why a Board of Arbitration, sitting permanently or brought into being as the occasion may warrant, cannot be utilized in Shangh to avoid these ever-increasing disturbances of the peace. Such a board would represent the employers, the workers and the general public. It would consist of Chinese and foreign gentlemen, whose reputations would preclude the possibility of unfairness and whose interest it would he to see that peace prevailed. Such a board would immediately aift the fact, get down to what this plan by those who always stand out for individual action or who oppose international cooperative enterprises in Shanghai, but such objections cannot. be taken seriously in view of, the increase in its size and the importance of its industrial problems, PEKING, Feb. 20—An order is sued by the Waichiaopy recalls Me. Shih Tsan-yuan (Vise-Consul New York) for service at the Minis try of Foreign Affairs, and appoints Ihave no idea; it is the sort of ela' which in any case commonly be-Jcomes a subject of negotiation. The point to emphasize is that the Jessential damages in the Linchen affair have Leen paid, a unique event, we believe, amid the formidable, though doubtless just, list of demands for compensation which the turbulence of the past few years hax produced. That payment ought to have been made before, we will not emphasize. That it hax been made should, we think, fairly be jecived as evidence that the administration in Peking ix trying: to retrieve the past. In the now fas his successor in New York Mr.|P overbial penury of the capital Pao Chun-kao. Mr. Kao Ying is beat by hungry office-seekers and Appointed Vice-Consul at San Franfexhuusted by sinecures, $00,000 jeisco.—Reuter's Pacifile Service. no small sum to find. Possibly som>: people will say we are exaggeration MansaL Wu Pei-fu must be the importance of the payment. But "bound up with strings or ropes? there has been and, no doubt, is. s0- and sent away by force, if he per-much that excites" criticism, that sists in remaining in Hupeh, aceord-Janything on the other side of the ing to telegraphic instructions des-ledger should fairly be recognized Patched to the Tupan of that pro-Jand we would fain believe that the Vince. Somebody will evidently et significance of this payment may small squeeze out of the warrior roye considerably greater than the for "easement" of his bonds. He actual sum involved. is sure to be obliging enough to pre-for string bonds, from which' he The Case of M. Ostroumoff may perhaps. escape.
Why is M. Ostroumoff, the former he conclusion of the Russo-manager of the Chinese Eastern treaty, Russians are] Railway, still in prison? Early in wondering what will be the fate the present year an amnesty was Jof Nicolaievsk Cathedral, built. in announced by the Chief Executive 1801 in Alexander ILL'S reign at a in Peking, under which it was dis-Joost of Y.300,000, metly understood that M. Ostroumpressed by" Ri Tokyo (say off would benefit. Yet unless Shanghai Russian papers) that the 13e has been overlooked by northfeathedral will be confiscated, correspondents, a very unlikely izious buildings, not thing, he is still' in the gaol int> Peking, und in Siberi which the Bolsheviks caused him to be thrown the day after Marshal Brvons the Great War there was Chang Tso-lin gave them the C.E.R.
project to erect a skyscraper in last October. A correspondent, who Harbin, but the matter was dropped was not long ago in Shanghai and and only now the question is being went from here to Poking to in-taken up again, this time by" the terest all he could in the ease, writes: German firm of Kunst & Albers. from Harbin:—This firm owns the property which trip to Peking seemed crowned is now ured as a cinema theatre, the with success and Dekadans, at the corner of "the irjevaya and Kitaiskaya, The a to Harbin Herald" understands that fan architect is on the way from Germany with plans and it is pro-|'™ blocked tu Muke the' Hedy "working stealthily posed to pull down the present one-storey building and erect a very; igh one in its place, Mar Shimun, Patriarch of the Assyrian Christians, who is only 16, as. arrived Jerusalem from Baghdad. He is to be'the guest of the Anglican Bishop, and way to England, where he wil continue his education. with the title of "Hereditary, 'Temporal, and Spiritual Patriarch," speaks English fluently. He. succeeded to his dignified office at the'
of 11. In ancient days the n of his ancestors extended from Tartary to Malabar and from Antioch to Peking. The young. Patriarch is travelling alone.
Peking mandate, issued on Saturday, accepts the resignation -f Mr. Tong Shi Minister Foreign Affairs, and orders Mr. Shen Jui-li succeed him' as head of the Waichiaopu. Mr. Shen has been attached ito the Ministry since 1908. In Angus:, 1910, he "was appointed Chiness Minister to Vienna and was there when the Great War broke out. Since his return he has been Vice-inister, which post he has held under no fewer than half-a-dozen foreign ministers. Meanwhile Dr.
Wang, having failed success. fully' to secure the post, has left, Peking. for Shanghai in disappointment and disgust, says the Chinese press kindly. the' back of the "stale The writer goes on to say that, on in Harbin, he found that the higher officials were pos that M. Ostroumof was to be re-lensed within two or three days of the amnesty. three days, requisite for certain form: tine ter aft Recently a bad turn has cen observed "in Int. Ontroumef's state of health, and save consequences are ap. Preherded,. 29 that. the prison. doder Setroumalts hie "in ange Spite "of all. thin, the Chinese authorities are taking no stops in his fBehaif and the situation ie unchanged, to be remembered that no} specific accusation has ever been brought against M. Ostroumoff, Whose management of the C.E.R., indeed, was most able. We believe there has been some sort of private hearing, but M. Ostroumoff had to meet it' wholly unprepared, and we believe we are correct in saying that the has never been allowed to consult a lawyer. There is a generally believed report that the real cause of the Bolsheviks' enmity (apart, of Jeourse, from the fact that he is one of them) is that one of his Inst acts was to distribute the railway pension fund to the emplayjad earned it, in. order ta. prevent the money from falling into the Red claws.
Tt sounds brigades. This means absolutely nothing, for it ix quite impossible in time of even minor warfare to] estimate what strength a division or brigade at any particular ment has at its service. The Britis Army information on the subject 20 sar }ago put a Chinese division down as 25,000 men, which wax probably. Fight on paper, as i was the same fas the German strength and General Falkenhayn had just been engazed re-organizing the Chinese army The a Your nowadays leives the normal strength aw abut 10,000 me ivi ales, but an it ix hot a bouk it fails to stu of the division, ably the best guide as If we took the British book figures we should pr ably: have two ami a half men, whereas if we took the: "Year Book™ it wool bein round It ix rather to note that fa 1920 "O} Hsu, was then Pr mated the length of the uring" 1,400,000, while a well-known pers son age writing in. these under the name of "Bruce Baxter," Dut it as low ax 600,000, adding the visa "excluding fintlocks." This in Shanghai varieties of weapons that it would have—been out of the question for any army ization to meet their' needs, Jand a great many of them could from a technical point of view we-cordingly be classed as" Alintlochs, [Apart from that, however, it huge army, and ought to be too rear for the country's needs, ought to be borne in mind that the umber of divisions with which the Germans made their huge onslaught. fon the Western Front in 1918 was about 160, and here we have [China something like 100 division giving on the whole a most un: distinguished account of themselves, The only thing the Re-organization Conference ought to do with this army is to serap it,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.