May 3.
WHATEVER we may choose to think, according to our respective predilections, of M. Hodoroff's visit to Shanghai, there is one aspect of it which can hardly be gain said. Unless M. Hodoroff is the most consummate of ''Red'' Machiavellis, which those who have met him will find difficulty in believing, his arrival here does imply that Chita is confident that it has something to offer which it is worth the while of business men to examine. Both he and M. Yourin have been in Peking for some months past, where the latter is believed to have been trying to arrange a trade agreement between China and the Russian Far Eastern Republic. But less perceptive men than they can understand that agreements with Peking are little worth, so long as the merchants of Shanghai stand aloof. Hence, we take it, M. Hodoroff's visit. He says openly that Chita is in great need of the grain and cattle that China can provide, and in the interview we publish to-day he tells us what other things the Far Eastern Republic wants which the West can supply and what it can give in return, He appears to have no misgivings as to the necessary credits and he says that Siberia is a country full of vitality which he thinks has only to state its case in order to find remedies.
If we may, with manners, touch on personalities, there can be no question but that M. Hodoroff will make the best impression wherever he goes. He speaks with frankness and sincerity and is the last sort of man whom one would associate with subterranean scheming, still less with communist extremism, He would like, naturally, to see his country received back into the comity of nations, dislikes the old régine and scouts the idea of a counter-revolution in Russia.
But he emphasizes that his business is economic not political and he emphasizes (certainly we would not doubt him) that if there are Bolshevist agents intrigning among China's workers, he has not the faintest idea who they are. Now there are many sober-minded people who are only too anxious to believe that men like M. Hodoroff are genuinely typical of the ruling
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.