we statements in to-day' yesterday's telegrams should attaact attention, Answering a! question in the House of Commons as to whether the Government would now appoint a Minister to Hankow, Mr. Baldwin said gravely that it impossible to say what modification of British policy might be rendered necessary by present or future events. And Lord Birkenhead, speaking! outside Parliament but perhaps none the less officially, said that} saw little prospect of" thi situation in China liquidating and that no one could venture to insolvent but this. condition is} declared, by those who know, to but temporary. A commission, under Lord Blanesborough, has been sitting and this body, on which both employers and workers were represented, has brought in a unanimous report jin which it declares tha this fund is "the sheet anchor of national security." The new proposals brought forward by the commission are that the fund shall be supported by a triple! contribution. From the workers, who are to contribute 5d per man and Sid per woman employee; from the employers of labour jand from the state. In the event} lof unemployment the man worker} is to receive 17 shillings and the woman 15 shillings. Boys and girls will be entitled to 6 and 5 shillings per week respectively.
The contribution to be levied Jon the workers is a modest sum which none of them will miss and the benefits to be received are al handsome return on the investment. Seventeen shillings is not} large sum compared with the wage earned by an ordinary] worker who is in regular employ-predict: what was likely to hap-Bonin dite country in the next/ment But the ditersnce bet; few. years, months, or even) Non nothing, when a man is out weeks, It is impossible not to! connect these speeches vith ¢h situation of Shanghai, Little by' little the British Governmen* li being driven to realize the failure of policy of conciliation and' the neces ity of postponing further negotiation till more normal conditions.
At this juncture may we once more draw attention to the] statement of policy defined in the Municipal Council's manifesto published thi ree days ago? The! Daily News 4 of London comments sourly that the Gounell haa at last become particul without saying anything in particular." But dhe manifesto says something very much in particular.
Tt enunciates a mode of procedure which, while in no way]
ling to sympathize with th aims of the Chinese resident: 8 in Shanghai, points irrefu'abl; to the only way in which those claims could be met.
After recalling how the Ratepayers hav made atop towards meeting Chines wishes by voting for three Chinese councillors of, equal status with their foreign colleague the manifesto states followa:—The Council for the International Settlement of Shanghai will be guided by the results achieved the alteration in its constitution re-_ ferred to in the preceding clause and by political developments, who considering how far a policy of devolution can be applied to a city] work, is the difference between absolute misery and, compara~ tive, contentment. The man with seventeen shillings in his pocket} is not in affluent circumstances but he can look the wolf of poverty in the face and bid him certain defiance. There are in China and certain other countries, what are known as, faith missions, Members of these so-cities have no guarantee of a fixed income. Some of them make no public appeal for funds but accept whatever sums are Jsent in to their treasurers and carry on with heroic indifference to the hardships that their self-denying ordinance sometimes tails, One cannot but admire faith and zeal of men and wame who are actuated by the high motives to choose the path of] duty to which they believe they Jare called even if it promises be a thorny one. But the manual Jworker at home, and especially, ithe casual labourer, displays a faith that is scarcely less admire lable. He is not animated by religious enthusiasm bu+ nurses a hardy optimism that somehow he: will worry through. He brings home his pay envelope and empties its contents into the lap of his careful housewife who proceeds to pay her bills. The remainder is usually a very lexiguous quantity but the household proceeds happily enough on. its way. There are few of us land from the state. The man's Protection of China south of the! self-respect is not destroyed be-Yangtze from being submerged cause he realizes that he by the Communis* Party directed paid for the benefits he receives, from Moscow. But if General) and the sum given is never large Chiang is to save his fellow-enough: ¢o tempt any but the countrymen from the Reds he naturally indolent to regard as must act swiftly and relentlessly. a substitute for wages that can; Will be prove himself the man be earned. It must be realized of action and decision, the cham. that the money given in unempion of the true principles - of ployment benefit is not thrown Sun Yat-sen, the defender of, away as happens in the case of his country? Or will he too go war expenditure. The preserva-down with China in the Red tion of the health of the worker flood? and his family is a national asset which is worth all it costs. An army of unemployed with a lean and hungry look about it would!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.