Mr. Wen Ying-peng, who signs himself President, - Chinese Society for the Advancement of International Law and Relations, has written ah exceedingly useful article on the "Causes and Cures of Givil War in China," for "Current History." Mr. Wen apparently knows his subject, which is @ most unusual condition with Chinese writers in American publications. He gives the following summary of the condition of the Chinese people during the past two decades:
Within the Inst twenty years China has probably gone through more changes than all the changes during the previous twenty turies. Not one but several great historical revolutions are taking place simultaneously. A fou thousand-year-old monarchy is being changed to a republic; auto-racy to democracy; an international "'semi-colony" to a save: eign State; medieval agvicultar handicraft economy to modern industrialism; family loyalty to individualism; Buddhism, Contucianism and super stitution to Christi unity, perhaps, but to. science eventually; order to disorder, and to onder again; everything' old to something new—a_ thousand changes, thousand conflicts and a thousand struggles, in ideas, institutions, groups and individ: vals. In these circumstances, China's wars represent merely the most acute and violent phase of the rapid social, economic, political and ideological transformation, The present outbreak of hostilities simply an episode in the struggle for final supremacy or fan unfinished act in the long-drawn campaigns and battles, nor will it be the last unless conditions for real peace are established and an early victory is assured to the forces and ideas that are destined eventually to triumph.
Mr. Wen then goes on to discuss the present arrangements and their relationships of var-fous generals. He analyzes the entire situation in its economic, bearings as follows:
A... great obstacle in the way of real national peace is the relative lack of common economic interests among the large majority of the people. Ninety per cent. of n are engaged I-scale farming, domes-tie handicrafts, or purely local trade, The farmer with a five-acre farm can scarcely produce surplus to sell in a distant market; neither can he afford to purchase manufactured goods to any extent. The country shoemaker, the small town carpenter, or the village blacksmith. each using his two hands as motive powers, can produce only enough to meet the demand of the immediate neighbourhood. The customers of tha local trader generally consist of the people he knows, and to them the service and protection of a progressive government do not seem of great importance. 'There is no need' for a national: mari and am autonomous national tariff administration can appeal to them only on sentimental and patriotic grounds. They own no stocks investments in the war zones, so that if fighting should ocean 2 western manufacturer a thousand miles away, for the fighting might then cut the latter's supply of raw materials or the demand for his finished products. In other words, war is less intolerable la a society with a primitive econ mic organization than in one wit a highly developed industry system.
The economic. phase of the China problem has usually been ignored because we have been concentrating so much upon the single factor of political intei= gue, Instead of thinking about the people of China, we have all thought about certain "persons in China. Instead of fitting all facts into general pictures, we have permitted propagandists to manufacture facts for us which never fitted into any actual picture of conditions in China, The silver crisis seems to be bringing men to their senses, with the result that even politicians in China are beginning to think in terms of economic relationships, Some of their thinking would make a youngster in a class in economics in any university slightly ashamed, but that docs not matter, As long as they are thinking at all in a realm which requires the most exact knowledge, they are bound to mako some progress in the direction of service to the whole people of China. And after all, as Mr. Lionel Curtis tried to explain, what is beneficial to the greatest number is beneficial to all of na living here,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.