It is difficult to know bow to regard the "nation-wide" strike, to begin on Wednesday, which has been called by the students. They have made a powerful. appeal to foreign sympathy. They are taking the utmost care that there shall be no interference with foreign convenience. And thus, the quarrel—at any rate the arena in which is being fought, being purely Chinese, foreigners scarcely have right to criticize. Moreover, it must be admitted that ardent young men, feeling acutely as they do, have cause for desperation. The Shantung issue, the Twenty. One Demands, the Military Pact—one by one seem to have receded into the background and, for all the heart-searching and outery they produced, What. gave rise, to no little surprise, Nobody seemed one penny the worse Is it surprising that the students feel some greater effort is needed? On the other hand, it_is not easy to see what they can hope to achieve. Do they expect, seriously, that shopkeepers and labourers all over the country will join them in suspending all work, as when u village would put up its shutters to force the magistrate to repeal an unpopular tax? That is surely asking more than even exasperated China will do. And meanwhile there is evidence that the students still take the wrong view of the new Consortium, believing that it will simply be another means for the Peking Government of bolstering up its power. Therein we are honestly sure that they are mistaken. We think, and with good ground for so thinking, that the Consortium will yet reveal itself as an effective instrument to shape better administration in China. 1t may not act as quickly as, or by the ways that, the students would de sire. But of the sincerity of its purpose in the minds of the chief partners there can be no doubt nor is it less certain that, until all partners are of the same mind, it will not operate at all. Patiense is an unpopular doctrine to preac' at such a moment, but without we fear that the students will only succeed in running themselves, not the Government, into fresh trouble.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.