Cutna's Apstract Rigats.
The problem which distresses foreigners most in Peking, whether or not they are commercial folk, is _vhat will happen to the railway. The Chinese, when they are interestsd, are only interested in recovering it, which is laudable and should be encouraged, but which does not by any means solve the problem. It ts the contemplation of the condition of such railways as the Kin-Han and the Kin-Sui which tempers our joy in the fact that China has opportunity to acquire what is her's by abstract right. By abstract "ght the writer means what China a nation is entitled to, in keep-ug with our Occidental conceptions national sovereignty and inlependen., as opposed to what she ras deserved or earned.
At the tail end of the peace conerence China acquired or recover-'d many abstract rights which, concretely she had not earned, either hrough deserving efforts towards reform at home or through dipmatic conquests abroad. These rights were not given or restored to} rer through charity, but through} ho application to the East on the art of the other delegations of our Yecidental theories of national) is an influential foreigner in Peking with a serenely logical rund,.who is convinced that China is decaying, that she is now in a hopeless mess and that her future ig ni no question of China's abstract rights ever comes up that is not on China's side, defending er rights as he would defend cne ights of his native land on his native soil. If he were convinced that with the abolition of extraterritoriality he and his busin: interests, his friends and_ their business interests, would be hound-jed ent of China through the gross maladministration of justice, he would nevertheless insist that extra territorial jurisdiction was an intolerable tyranny and should be abolished, thinking all the while not of China's fitness or preparedness but of what his home folk would think of such an institution if it were imposed upon therm by a stronger Power or a group of stronger Powers. This is a mental habit' from which none of us in China can be wholly free and which must of necessity have a much stronger hold upon the judgement -of the representatives of the Powers {assembled in Whshington who have never seen Chang Chin-yao's soldiers on the war path, who have never ridden on a local train on the Kin-Tan railway. who have never read che record of a Chinese law suit. vho have never studied the high finance of a Tuchun government.
The foreign trained Chinese in hose keeping is China's diplomacy, those diplomatic objective is face rather that concrete advantages, know how to play upon the Occidental regard for abstract right and to lead all discussion away from the concrete question of China's pre-poredness, fitness or deserts.
After the Pacific Conference had settled down to doing justice to China, the Chinese got a great deal more than anyone anticipated they would get a month ago. Under the circumstances it is surprising that they did-not get more. Had they got all they asked for China would either have been a howling wilderness within 10 years or she would have been quietly prospering under a commission of foreigners and under the protection of an army of occupation. As it is she has had a number of heavy responsibilities thrust upon her. If she lives up to them our conception of her abstract rights and her concrete rights—her worthiness in other words—will coincide and we shall all rejoice with her. If according to existing precedent and tradition she makes a grievous muddle of these responsibilities, our two conceptions of right—the imported sense and the acquired sense based upon experience—will be in conflict, and in our own hearts secretly and unwillingly, we shall begin to consider that heresy so repugnant to all of us who have been partly Sinofied, intervention.
Curxa's Great CHaNce, The one conspicuous field offered to China for proving her worth is Shantung, and the most vital thing in Shantung is the railway. If the Chinese people subscribe Mks. 53,406,141 within five years and purchase the Japanese interest it vill most decidedly be w feather in China's cap; but if while purchasing the railway for China the people have not the foresight to provide in some way that the line shall not become a Tuchun's plaything and a delight for truculent joy-riding soldiers, they will not only have failed to acquire an asset for themselves and China, but will advertise to a reluctant world that while. China had a perfectly good abstract right to the railway the Powers in turning it over to her have failed in their duty as executors to consider her concrete fitness.
By way of illustration, suppose that a man who owns a marble quarry dies leaving an heir in the person of a small boy. A relative, a grown man, produces a will by virtue of which the quarry is his so he commences to work it. The matter is taken to court where it is determined that upon the settlement of certain financial details the small boy should acquire the quarry. Abstract justice is satisfied, but if, having acquired the quarry, the small boy floods it with muddy water so that he may have a pond wherein to swim and whereupon to sail miniature boats, and if he eventually drowns himself in the useless lake that he has made of a useful quarry, public opinion would certainly hold the child's guardians guilty of having neglect. ed their responsibilities and the court guilty of lack of foresight in
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.