Oct. 1.
To-Day, as we understand from the telegrams, river steamers generally will begin running again between Hongkong and Canton, a formal intimation to! the world that the boycott has been called off. In actual fact, it appears to have ceased some. days ago. As far back as September 15, the I. C. 8. Fooshing had gone to Canton and returned with a fair quantity of cargo, though no passengers. And Mr. Eugene Chen's note to' the British acting Consul-General, informing him that his Government were stopping the boycott, was sent in on or before the 22nd, Also we have heard fof at least one important shipment reaching Canton. The main point is not the precise day, but the fact of the boycott being lifted, sich episodes apparently to the contrary as those reported to-day being in all probability as inevitable as negligible.
The lifting, it seems to be understood, is partly conditional, on Canton's being allowed to impose surtaxes on imports and exports on the scale proposed by the Washington Conference, This is not mentioned in Mr. Eugene Chen's note, but is clearly stated by the official "Canton Gazette.' The whole scheme provides also for the abolition of likin, the idea being to let the merchant: know exactly what he has to pay and to collect it, as the "Gazette"
ith a minimum of annoy-Acceptance or rejection fof this proposal does not depend fon Great Britain alone, but is a question for all the Powers. This should clearly be understood. No Power could act alone in such a change, without detri ment to her nationals; and the! full scheme to include abolition of likin necessarily requires the acquiescence of all Powers. Speaking generally, we see no reason why they should not, agree. The extra taxation is not heavy'; not the merchant, but the! consumer would pay; "and hei should not "feel it greatly. The! question is whether the Powers would be willing to do in one] district what they are not yet doing, though they are quite ready to do it, in all China. This further involves the question whether they insist on per petuating the fare of dealing only with Peking or are rea to accept facts as they are, se recognize the condition of China as she now is and to make retional agreements with the! several states into which she has split up. But this is too big al matter for the scope of the present article.
We are given no inkling as to why the boycott was called off. In all probability the Canton Government realized that, whatever harm it might be doing to Hongkong, it was a highly expensive failure from Canton's Point 6f view and contributed to} state of, lawlessness' most un-without permission. desirable while General Chiang Kai-shek was conducting a life-and-death campaign in the north, But the point to emphasize is that the Canton Government, by calling off the boycott when it suited their purpose to do. so, have openly confessed that the boycott was always theirs to maintain or terminate as they pleased. Mr. Eugene Chen's phrase about "arrangements with the Strike Committee" (if possible to-day, why not months Jago?) is mere camouflage, This is one of the most unblushing admissions of past duplicity that could be found. Hitherto the Canton Government have always pretended that the boycott was the spontaneous expression of a virtuously enraged people, which they were' powerless to prevent, And more than once negotiators from Hongkong have been referred to the Strike Committee on the excuse that the affair was none of the Canton Government's, All this is now conveniently forgotten on the Cantonese side. Not so, however, on the foreign, especially in view of the hardly veiled threat in Mr. Eugene Chen's last sentences. If there is any revival' of the boycott, Hongkong will know exactly why. As the boycott has been stopped now because Canton chooses, so, rand for the same reason—it will have been reimposed. We do not seriously anticipate any such danger, But if signs of it arose, there could be no longer any pretence of shifting the responsibility. And what it has suited the Canton Government to take off, they must not be allowed to reimpose.
Quite. apart from the threat involved, there is a touch of seriousness, even of pathos, in Mr. Eugene Chen's allusion to "British comprehension of Chinese nationalism, its ideas and force as a principle of energy in the work of unifying and modernizing China," which will appeal to all who strive to read the signs of the times. Britons have no cause just now to love the Canton Government, whose duplicity and deceitfulness have done more harm than Chinese aye aware of in embittering old kindly feelings and imparting a hardenness to foreign thoughts of this country where once there was only goodwill. But while we turn in disgust from so much that Canton has done, it would be unwise and unjust to depre-jate the force and potential value of the nationalist movement. In Canton are numbers of earnest men and women, whose ambitions for their country are worthy of respect, even though their efforts are liable ut the outset to go astray and to give an impression of themselves as displeasing as it is really inaccurate. And this same nationalist spirit is at work in varying degrees in all parts of China, It is the one source of energy and life to which she can look for the future and foreign ers must learn to look to it also. That does not lessen their right resist local acts of outrage like the attack on Shameen, the boycott and Wanhsien,—Such doings ave a crime against {civilization and do infinite harm to China in her upward course, But with so much momentarily amiss, there is the greater cause to look closely for whatever may point the way to better things and, wherever possible, to extend the helping hand. "Not the least di rossing side of the past fifteen months and more is that they have so frequently brought us into conflict officially and in the mass with a people for whom privately and personally we have nothing but kindly feeling. There is something monstrous in the perversity of it all from which one would fain break away to make a new start, for-cotting the past and determined only to do the best for the future It will not be Great Britain's fault if the lifting of the boycott in Canton does not prove the starting point of a new
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.