Des. 8.
Tame is, perhaps, no public man alive who provides a more engrossing subject of study than "the Christian General." The interest of it is proportionate the enormous nature of the whole problem of China and is bound! up with the part he plays therein. Recently Marshal Feng has been somewhat under a cloud—at least his detractors have been more vocal than his friends and among some Chinese we have heard accusations scarcely printsble and certainly, whatever else might be criticized in him, quite incredible in view of all that is known of him. Even mission. aries, once very naturally his great supporters, have been a little chilled, partly by his seeming faithlessness to Marshal Wu Pel-fu a year ago, partly by his supposed connexion with Bolshevism. By most persons he is generally allowed to be an enigma, There remains one possibility: that what Marshal Feng says he really means. If this theory be too startling for general acceptance, no particular discompliment to him is intended: it is merely that Chinese officials have hardly accustomed the world to measure them by s0 simple a test. But the bare possibility of it as applied to Marshal Feng lends special interest to the address to his subordinate officers which we reproduce to-day. It would not appear that he was speaking specially for publication; on the contrary one understands that Marshal Feng is in the habit of making such speeches, which form part of the regular training of his subordinates; and this naturally increases its interest. As in the interview we printed last week, Marshal Feng strongly repudiates the charge of being Bolshevist. Dr. Sun was accused of that, he says, quite falsely: and he argues that Dr. Sun's theories of government! were incompatible with what Moscow preaches. And of himself Marshal Feng declares that! he is neither for nor against any nation. Last week, it will be recalled, he denied the charge of being anti-foreign and urged that China should be at peace within herself and with other peoples, and even secure their help, where it may be necessary. He says to-day:—
"If Tam pro anybody at all, it it he who has the salvation of China st heart. If I am anti anybody, it he who betrays our country') foreign nations."
He says, rather ruefully, that Chinese have invented a much surer way of destroying men than by bullets, namely, by labelling them with epithets, now calling @ man royalist, now re-volationist, now Bol different times, he self on the most slender grounds has been ticketed with the name of half-a-dozen factions. There is a fine passage on the topsyturvydom of the *public of! China. Theoretically in a republic it is the people who are master, the officials who are servants." But in China the "master" starves, is oppressed, is hounded into prison; while the servant" is dressed in silks and satins, fares sumptuously and tyrannizes over all. The address ends with an admonition that smacks strongly of the last two verses of that strangely possi mistic -book Ecclesiastes: "Hold fast to the principle of right and truth; other things will take care of themselves."
the generally known. facts: of How Hoes all this square with Marghal Feng's career?. It certainly! imposaiblé: to -beliéve thet be is: in, amy sense a Bolshevist.: That woald' seem too incompatible with: His character soldier! and -distiplinarian, to say nothing of him Christian, to be credible. That he has obtained arms and ammunition from the Bolsheviks is beyond doubt: if he got them for} rething, one is driven to the jconelusion that he. has using the Red Russiatis for his purposes, as they thought to use kim for theirs—a dangerous game but, in dealing with people like the Bolshevists, not neces: sarily to be condemned if the layer's own conscience approves Less easily understood are Marshal Feng's dealings first with ex-President Li Yuan-hung, then. with Marshal Wu Pei-fu, In default of much more infor motion which might be available jon these subjects, the charitable] explanation is that Marshal Feng considered the end to justify the means and, if we accept the late} Sir John Jordan's definition of kim as "an Old Testament Christian," he would, not lack analogies in the Old Testament} to justify what he did. We do not say we like it, We are merely trying to look at the qivestion from what may have been Marshal Feng's point of view. His own plea was that he wished to stop the fighting and prevent Chinese from killing Chinese. Probably his action did mean many less deaths at the time. of the ultimate results one cannot tell. Certainly they have not yet spelt peace.
Two notable facts have to be remembered in connexion with Marshal Feng. In the first place army is unquestionably the best disciplined and best behaved in China, Wherever it has been' stationed, the people of the district have only prayed that it! should remain. In the second place, Marshal Feng not only has never yet fought, but he has repeatedly exclaimed against Chinese fighting Chinese. But in the present circumstances of, China, it is idle for anyone to talk like that unless he is in the position to say to those who disagree, "If you don't mend your ways, it will be the worse! for you."' Hence the building up of what is probably the best army of its size in China and the acceptance of supplies from! Moscow, not for use except in the last resort, but as a big stick the mere shaking of which will cause the unruly to "tremble and obey." And this theory leads on inevitably to the belief that Marshal Feng considers China can only be brought to salvation through a period of dictatorship, and that he himself is prepared to be that dictator for the restoration of peace and unity. We are admittedly in the realm of speculation. But when we read his speeches, and remember. as it is only fair to do, what he has done where he had control, impossible to set him down 28 the terrible hypocrite he must be if all this is mere talk: nor does one think his own men would have followed him so devoted ly as they have done, The alternative is that he is working' along definite lines towards a certain end, which might ul mately bring down blessings upon him from those who to-day curse. To take this view would mean the revising of many ideas and. retractation of not a few hard words and this paper' would be among those who had to do it. But these are days for revision of attitude in most directions and the future may very well show that Marshal Feng i one on whom we must all learn to look with new eyes.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.