The Pacific Conference offers China an exceptional opportunity to state her case before the world, to clear up misunderstandings with other nations and to call upon those nations to assist her constructively and without loss to her of sovereignty or basic rights.
The Conference is called with one large purpose, namely, it hoped through it to avert a Pacific War by thrashing out in advance all the misunderstandings which, if permitted to annoy and rankle the Pacific nations, will probably lead to bloodshed. The two principal ju the Pacific are China and the antipathies which arise between America and Japan out of China, leading to an increase. in armament among the nations concerned. So that before the Conference can discuss any. question with regard to disarmament it has first to determine the status and future of China.
A Mass or Contnapicrions.
This in itself is a difficult enough problem. For China taxes the ingenuity of the best students of conditions here not only to see into her future but to understand her present. The government is financially bankrupt, but the country is rich. The provinces are at war; but the masses are peaceful. No progress is being made in the administration of the country; yet in business and finance tremendous developments are under way. China's attitude toward the for. eigner is becoming most unfriendly; yet all nations are competing for China's friendship. As, paradoxical as was Turkey is China, and the paradoxes become more serious and more difficult of solution when one realizes that here are mo} than 4,600,000 square miles of territory and perhaps half a billion human beings, so large a part of the earth that its present condition and future prospects affect the entire human race.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.