Nov, 22.
A few days ago we found reason to comment at some Length upon the communication to the "Times" on the subject of safeguards to British trade in China, which was signed by Lord Southborough and the officers of the leading commercial organizations in Great Britain that have a stake in this country. It will be remembered that we drew much consolation from that letter because it showed that the situation, with its attendant problems, was at last 80 clearly recognized at Home that those having the most to lose had the courage to come out openly with suggestions that were in strong contrast to the policy of "patient conciliation" enunciated by Sir Austen Chamberlain last December. The sug~ gestion, among other things, that Hankow be reoccupied by British forces until some Chinese administration was prepared to discharge the obligations assumed by Eugene Chen.under the Chen-O'Malley agreement, implied clearly enough that the surrender of control over the British Concession at Hankow was recognized as a ghastly error and that, as an experiment in conciliation, it had been disas-tously expensive, We cannot expect Sir Austen Chamberlain, nor the Government in which he is a Minister, to confess in as simple language as we have used that the policy which they forced their diplomatic agents in China to carry out last year was altogether misguided and untimely and that they are responsible for the'series of bold assaults upon foreign rights, persons and properties that have followed their effort to win the good will of a plenipotentiary agent of the Soviet Government, through a puppet Chinese administration, This would be as Poor polities at Home as the Hankow fiasco was bad policy in China, From the day that the signing of the Chen-O'Malley agreement
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.