Dec. 10.
THE newly formed Chin: Committee has lost no time in offering a solution for the dilemma in which foreigners and Chinese find themselves through the success of the Cantonese.
We are told that after a meet-
1g of members of both Houses the House of Commons, Mr. Leefe (of Jardine's) on behalf of the China Committee suggest-fed that the Cantonese Government should receive recognition by Great Britain on condition of its maintaining peace in its ter~ ritories and putting an end to ithe boycott and other anti-British propaganda; and that further important concessions in respect lof treaty revision and the Customs should be arranged "when responsible Governments are established in the North and South," until which time all existing treaties would have to be recognized.
To not a few people in China it will appear that the China Committee are pressing the pace 'a little too quickly, and that their suggestions, without satisfying the moderate wing of the Kuomintang, are likely to excite the extremists to further excess. That the Cantonese have scored a startling success is undeniable, But what may eventually come of it, it seems too soon to prediet with certainty. Russia's as. sistance, particularly ino Jganizing propaganda, has been Jan important fact in the progress of the Southern armies and it must be remembered that Moscow's aim is certainly not to sce a well organized government established in China: on the contrary, the principle laid down by Lenin himself was that na-[tional discontent and disorder in China should generally be stimulated with a view to assisting the general attack on what he called "the capitalist and Impenalist Powers." Assuming what seems indeed most probable, that the domination of Canton will extend all over China south of the Yangtze before many weeks are out, it remains to be proved that that power would be permitted by the agents provoeatenrs of Moscow to establish itself on well organized and efficient lines. On the contrary, every effort would probably be put forth to break up the newly established state with internal dissensions, leading in the main to the ascendancy of the extremist wing and thus presenting a new and terrible problem both for foreigners and China too. On the other hand, the apparent assumption of the China Committee that this country is about to be converted into a dual state, with independent governments north and south of the Yangtze, is likely to annoy the moderate wing of the Kuomintang, who claim recognition as the Government not of half, but of all China. "They may even say that the China Committee are actually trying to divide China into two, though it ought to be unnecessary to add that nothing can have been further from the Committee's intentions, In the main, the China Com: Imittee's suggestion may do good by helping to convince all reasonable Chinese that Great Britain's policy is anything but tone of aggression, and that the best of the British community who are concerned with China Jappreciate the desires of her people and ave ready to meet them on terms of reason and equity. But we cannot help thinking it is*still a little too soon to attempt thus publicly to define what the attitude of ithe British or of any other Government is to be, while China remains in a state of civil war, the issue of which is so uncer tain, In a leading article of November 8 the "Times" says:—
A friendly attitude to the Chinese people and to genuinely constructive [Chinese nationalism, coupled with the protection of all legitimate British interests, is the principle which Mr. Miles' Lampson, the new, British Minister, has gone out to pursue, and will certainly pursue with skill and energy. This policy can be applied with the flexibility necessitated by a changing situa tion. is far too early to assume that to hail the Kuomintang as victors would be the short way out of our endless troubles in China, With these principles the British community in China should be able readily to agree, The situa tion may, perhaps, be summed lup as follows: We seck only freedom and a fair field for legitimate trade; we are perfect ly ready, in return, to meet the Chinese people where they be= lieve that they have grievances to redress; further, we have no wish to take advantage of the present divided state of the country to withhold such cons cessions where they are reasonably demanded and where it appears that they may safely be made; but it would not be for the good of China ax a whole to assume hastily that the situation as it appears to-day will be the same six months hence, still ess that which it may become when the long-drawn struggle between the new and ths old in China shall at last have been fought out.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.