By Geoace In the following article the writer clearly traces the cent political wart Chinn, the elreumatonres which have brought thout the precent gro Nanking and the dangerous The second Should he read by all who seek to the future Tinderstand the present aul estimate Th present contest in the ang over the constitution and function of the Legislative Council bids fair to make important constitutional history in China, For, in this country, as in the English-speaking countries, the people's Liberties will be secured not by some, political philosopher writing a! treatise of human rights, but rather as a result of a contest between those who seek to establish an and those who favour some form of democratic control, Any indication that the struggle has really commenced affords high hopes that China is on the road towards stabilization. In the past such barometric signs have only led to the conclusion that th instrument was faulty, for after a while, nothing happened. As far ack as 1919, and merchants of Peki started upon a career of democratic control, but when they had succeeded in preventing the of the Versailles Treaty, they settled into the morass of "running dogs of the militarists."
Government at all, except where it is absolutely necessary. Those who sad 10 Chinese will do well to read China in Revolt" by Mr. T'ang Leong-li, with a foreword by Dr. Tsai Yuan-pei and a preface by the: Hon. Bertrand Russell. In the firat chapter particularly—"China in Peace"-—tr. T'ang paints a peaceful, happy continent over which an Emperor reigned but did not rule, in which a Government functioned as little as possible because morals, decency, a veneration of elders, common-sense and good breeding produced order without law. Mr. 'T'ang's book important because it makes clear to the foreigner why men like Tsai Yuan-pei, Wu Tzehui, Hu Shih and other philosophers of ial, and to a large extent political Yaisnez-faire so definitely grip the imaginations of the is fellectuals of China. The fact is that those men advocate doctrines [which are understandable by the Chinese, while the policy of mil-iterism and force are as foreign as the slogans of nationalism and centralization of authority.
The Communist Dictatorship The Communistic Movement after 1923 abhorred democratic control of the Government. Their advocacy was for a dictatorship of the pro, Tetariat, but they succeeded in producing ' nothing better than dictatorship of neo-milit: April, September and Goverment in Nanking times, sought roads toward mocracy, but there has always been! the mountainous impediment of militarism, The Northern Expedifion seems to have ju ruthless suppression of popular rights, but the end of the expedition did not bring to a close the "purifying" efforts of those who, having started their careers as revolutionists, distrusted the people the moment they arrived at power. The great men of Nanking have sent the students back to. their hooks, after having justified, Canton and Hankow days, student nti-foreign mass movements for the achievement of the revolution. The inerchawts and bankers have never been represented in the Kuomintang, because, as capitalists, they did not fit into the system devised by Comrade Borodin, and the new oligarchs in Nanking admit few newcomers to patty control, fearing a dilution of power. Except through the Ministries of Finance and Commerce and Industry, capital that is, the famous "Shang" class among the Chinese, has no representation in Nanking.
The Bourgeois Backbone Yet, it is the bourgeoisie, this middle class, this "Shang" class which alone can develop a modern China and produce a stable Government, All history is but a comment Sé upon the capacity of the middle elass—the economic middle elass—to produce great Governments. Great Britain, the United States, japan, and Germany are middle-class nations; Russia is a dictatorship of the proletariat and Albania despotism of military adventurers.
This preface leads to a discussion of the Legislative Council, of which Mr. Hu Han-min is chairman and which was created by the Organic! Law, which, to any student of political science, is neither organic not law. For, it is little more than political agreement among factions for a process of administering Government during an. interfegnum, From this standpoint, the 'Organic Law is sound; from' any other it is an encumbrance upon progress Three Schools of Thought There are many schools of Yolitieal thought in China, but three of them are of sufficient importance to warrant careful analysis:
There are the anarchiste—the Genro,.who have, during the whole of their political lives advocated a "very Iooso form of Government, no Borodin opposed the anarchists 1 bitterly as he opposed capitalism and the position of the foreigners, because to him anarchism represented only the confusion of ill-trained reactionary mentalities. Yet, Borodin, in spite of his genius, erred somewhat in his appreciation of the intensely unsocialistic character of the Chinese and therefore he could not, in the shore time that he spent 1 in China, appreciate the fact that no political system could succeed jjunless it was grounded in this political characteristic of the Chi-
China most be loose at the top and concentrated in the village and family; that when Government in China becomes centralized and foreeful at the top, that is in the national capital, confusion results from the inability of the masses of the Chinese to adjust to a new centre of authority.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.