May 15.
In yesterday's leading article we protested against the futility of the war between Nanking and the North when there are 50 many far greater causes to which the efforts of both sides: could and should be directed. Objection may be raised that a foreign paper published in China has no business to criticize in matters which are primarily the affair of the Chinese. But the North-China Daily News" has been too long established and throughout its life too closely identified with all that most con-the welfare of this country, to keep silence at xo grave a crisis as she is now approach ing. The salient facts of tation to-day are that Eh has been in a virtual state 0 civil war for fourteen out of the twenty-four months Peking fell to the Nationalists and as things are going the dissatisfaction prevalent in al classes of Chinese.
The consciousness of the popular reaction against their efforts and the disappointment which has so perpetually dogged their best intentions has ted to discouragement and even despair among politicians and intellectuals. Contrasted with the enthusiasm of less than eighteen months ago, the sense of hopelessness which one finds 30) commonly among all Chinese today is perhaps the worst feature of all, the greatest obstacle with which China has to grapple. And yet there is not, or should not be, any real foundation for it, The ancient virtues of the Chinese people, their frugality and industry, are as strong a8. ever; and to these have been added new ideas and desires, in educational and social work, which are capable of immense development and which,—in the hands of many private organizations, are already bearing good fruit, Also we may believe that China going through a natural process of difficulties that inevitably come when revolution is seek ing to convert itself into evolution. But it is plain that. the pace was made too hot at the beginning. The eagerness of Conference of representatives from_all provinces met in Nanking to centralize financial control and allocate national and provincial revenues, when Caaton and Hankow immediately objected that they must' keep all their own revenues to repair the exhaustion caused by the northern campaigns, to which they declared they had contributed more than anyone else. There can be little doubt that this was really the beginning of the subsequent war between Nanking and) Wuchang. © This calamity, however, from which all subsequent wars have followed automatically, might hav been averted—indeed the Di andment Conference, attended by the six greatest generals in China, which met in January, 1929. awoke golden hopes of the fature—had it not been for certain events meanwhile, with-n the Kuomintang. On Octob 10, 1928, the new instrument of administration, known as the five Councils Government, came into force. The original intel tion, founded on Dr. Sun Yat sen's Will, was to supersede the cumbrous Committee system and to put the responsibility in the hands which should be wielding pledge it is-expected that major military operations will shortly be commenced against the insurgents." Of what happened in the intervening four weeks to cause the wise, earlier decision to be reversed, we have no formation, It may have been the powerful influence of the "blue-black block" of the Kuomintang which has more than once been visible in the vounsels of Nanking for dubious ends. It may have been that the completion of the new modal division trained by Nanking' German military advise irresistible temptation to experiment with it.—Whatev fighting has begun The Government claims notable ent in Nanking sin big battles coming, expected to decide the issue.
Meanwhile it is interesting to glance back over other records of what has been happening since the beginning of April. It is impossible not to be impressed by the growing strength of the Communist forees in districts south of the Yangtze. 'They failed to capture Kanchow in southern Kiangsi, but declare they will have another shot it, To compensate for this re~ verse, they made a raid "into Kuangtung, sacking Sinfeng and Tisiaho on' the way; and some of.them established themselves ata place called Hsinkuon, where they harried and slew land-owners, destroyed boundary marks and burned title deeds in the usual way. With all allowance for possible exaggera ation, we must believe that considerable tracts of Hupeh, Kiangsi, Fukien, Kuangtung and Kuangsi under!Com~ munist control; and we get evidence that a common organuzation is developing and that the bands in one district keep in touch with those ip another and follow a concerted policy. The reports of bandit outrages in Chekiang and even in Kiangsu, not many—miles from Shanghai, are too numerous to summarize here. At one time it was an unwritten law that, no matter what civil war or other disturbance might be raging, the silver to purchase cocoons from the Soochow and Wusih districts went through untouched. This year it is not so. Owing to the robberies that-have occurred, merchants are afraid to send dollars to buy cocoons; it is ex-voeted thet there will be a fifty ed, in-general, with—the appears no prospect of rialist principles, than sation, Supposing. the through victories in the field ment armies beat the North Disagreements followed, how it Honan and Shantung, supposing would be hard to say; und for they even re-chiter Peking: they more than a year China has an mot hold down the North for been in a state of civil war, good and all; their defeated sometimes open, sometimes hi opponents withdraw alittle, den, but none the less real in lick their wounds, and present-its damming effects on construc: ly come again. Or if the North tive work. None of the wars should win in the present round the past fourteen months were and capture Nanking, what bet: final, nor can there be any hope ter prospects can anyone fore-that' the present one see of permanent peace? Civil more fortunate. To all intents wars are always) the longest and purposes we are back again wars, and in China, owing to in the position of 1925 and 1926, the hugeness of the country and with a Government at one end slowness of communications, of the country recognized abroad one civil war merely begets an-but violently disavowed by a other. China will never be rival Government at the other unified by fore of the map. The only dif-It is impossible not to feel ference is that the recognized that the root cause of trouble Government was formerly that the system on which N: Peking and now it is in Nantionalism has tried to rebuild king.
China is wrong. The founda-What has been written will tion of that system is that the not be popular in some Nation-Kuomintang is the fount of all alist circles, but the situation is authority and all political wis-far too grave to admit of any dom during a given number glossing over of facts. And the years defined as the period of outstanding fact is that there political tutelage. In theory we appears nothing to stop the in-may admit some argument for terminable series of civil war, this contention. Granting that always futile and inconclusive, certain new principles of gov only varied by intermittent perernment are to be introduced, lods of exhaustion which quick-may easily be argued that there ly merge into fresh war, until must be a sort of permanent the best and strongest meu on superior council to define those all sides rouse themselves to in-principles, to sift the true from sist that fighting shall cease and the false and to supervise their turn their punitive expeditions, enactment. But in practice not against each other, but, things do not work out so against the word-spinners and ly. Actually the committee sys-sticklers for punctilio in their tem for which the Kuomintang own ranks. The enemies of stands tends to take the power Nanking and of the fruitful out of the responsible Ministers' growth of Nationalism are to be hands and leads to mere obstruc-looked for within its own walls; tion. It we look back over the and precisely the same might be past year we see that Nanking's said of the North, We do not main achievements, in finance believe that men like General and foreign affairs, were cart Chiang Kai-shek and General ed out by individuals, who for Yen Hsi-shan or many others one reason and another have who might be named really want been able to act independently. war or are blind to the dread-Elsewhere the attempts at conful consequences of the futile structive work have failed. Even' quarrel into which they have more serious is the fact that the been drawn. But the machinery Committee system in Nanking of party which tends. i has naturally been supplemented countries to make by committees in provinces and. dividuals appears to act more districts whose administration relentlessly in China than any-has brought unsparing odium on where, and it is a standing won-the Central Government. It der that the Chinese, normally would be difficult to exaggera among the most practical and the harm which the Tang -Pu sensible people in the world, aphave done to the cause of Na-pear to lose all power of reason tionalism among the people of and proportion directly they em-China. This is hard on Nan. bark on polities. 'The gravity: king, in which there are many, of China's condition was eloearnest men sincerely set on quently painted by Mr. Li Ming making their country a: better at the shareholders' meeting of place. But no good will come the Bank of China last Saturday. of their work unless they re-Unless some one cries halt to cognize that the District Coun-the good intentions was too great for proper allowance for the slowness with which all re: form ix effected. The strings of centralization were drawn too lit and the provinces revolted airist x domination which they hardly accepted from the Em-perers and would not tolerate from one whom most of them re:
merely as an equal, Tt Id be absurd to despair of China's future and it is possible still to make a fresh start. Bue the indispensable prelude is that fighting must stop, a truce be Hed and the urgent work of restoring peace and order in all provinces be undertaken in real earnest by each leader according to his abilities and authority, while questions of constitutional form are left to be settle ed in the calmer atmosphere that would follow.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.