Tt is therefore time that those who know_ what the communistic experiment in Russia has meant and still means to the Russian people should make an united and consistent effort tei tell the Chinese people, and particularly the Chinese intellectuals about it. It should lo made clear to them what the sovietizing of China under expert Russian management. would mean for China. But no Chinese and no outsider has any right to criticize the Chinese intellectuals for their leaning towards Bolshevism or to tear the Russian Soviet government to bits before their ayes, until ko has some solution of China's difficulties, some system to criggest other than the _pseudo-republicanism which official adventurers have ex-plaited almost to the nation's ruin, and, needless to say, something giving better promise than the Russian brand of Bolshevism. Destructive criticism of communism alone is worse than futile at this juncture because it will only serve to draw us all into endless and futile pole-mies, which the Chinese intellectual takes delight in prolonging and in which he will always persist until he has the last word. Tha time has come when every individual and every force must focus all possible serious thinking upon the evolution of a system of government which will work in China—not elsewhere and which will be congenial to the traditions and temper of the Chinese people.
It is to be presumed that the major Occidental Powers would deplore and even resent the Russianization of China. Conditions ara such now, however, that they will shortly have little else to expect unless they are prepared to give China's needs sympathetic study and help in every way possible towards her regeneration. This in fact is a duty that devolves upon every sane foreigner who does not like My. Lenin's theories or practice and who would resent seeing them imposed upon China As a first step there are certain thin-" which everyone who has Chinese friends should tell them: they should understand clearly the com. munistic theory and the methods of application in government approved by its high Russian apostles; they should know what communism has done for Russia; they should know what it would mean in China; they should know why democracy has not worked in China; and they should be given some idea how the best in our Occidental systems of liberal government can he grafted on Chinese traditions, customs and institutions without threwing the country into chaos or making " it ridiculous in the sight of—the world.
These are subjects upon which no tavo of us would be likely to agree at the beginning. But they ara subjects which have become vital, not only locally but internationally, since Mr. Joffe's arrival in Peking and -which we should think about and discuss if we ever expect anvone abroad to be interested. If only to promote discussion; if only to give the readers of the "North-China Daily News" something to disagree with. the writer will attempt to give his own views upon these subjects in ensuing articles,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.