The seeker after truth, going in and out among these different men, finds that there is one subject on which the shortsighted and the long-sighted tend to agree. China, they say, enn never put her house in unaided. From such a pre-frie Ie ong ala tothe dae mand for foreign intervention, which has many supporters throughout the country, even among those ho are not ofthe" "Shanghai Before necepting this conclusion, Jet us examine the premiss in order to find out how far the Chinese themselves acknowledge its truth It would be easy to show evidence in' the history of the Manchu Dynasty, still easier in the story of the Imperial Maritime Customs, the Salt Gabelle, and the Post Office, which proves its truth, but, except the case of the Customs, the modern Chinese would probably deny its validity by saying that foreign assistance was forced on China by the Treaty Powers.
We must therefore seek our evidence from some other source, and it will be found in the policy of Sun Yat-sen himself. When the author of the Three Principles set, out to construct the Republic of China on the ruins of the Empire he deliberately sought foreign aid, and when 1 failed to receive it from Western Europe or America he turned to Russia. Thus the prophet of the Ohinese Revolution showed that foreign assistance, of the proper Kind and given inthe proper way, was welcome. His followers have not receded from that position, trid we may expect that some day they may realize that what Russia gave with an ulterior motive the Liberal Powers will be prepared to offer with no other motive than the welfare of China. At the present moment the prospect of ce-operation Between the Powers—or any one of them—and China is not bright. Xenophobia is still rampant; and the fanti-foreign tide will have to ebb far from its high-water mark 1926 before the Chinese and the "Outsiders" can work effectively together for the benefit of China.
"Intervention" Futile The premiss being granted in the form of China's willingness to invite foreign help, in some appropriate way and at some future time, what is the conclusion? As commonly stated by foreigners in-China, it takes the following form:—
China's great evil ig. civil war, rmmged. by "Tuchuns who. seek Control the great ities and the railways, ther former for the wealth, utter for mobility. Deprive source of strength, fetes *e Control the, railway in ence. Tteis more
the end, therefore foreign, int on shout ro Key points, outsin, Shanzhal, Nanking, Han: Kam, Cantonand' forbidding miillary"trafie net duly authored onthe of rock coptrel il ae sola
Sed resuscitate trade.
The plan looks pretty on paper, but it is not practical polities. It assiiness a Central Government, which does not exist; it assumes a Chinese welcome to this form of intervention, which is improbable; and it assumes unity of action by the Powers, which is even less proable. Foreign intervention, in anything ike its usual form, isa castle in Spain built by one who knows neither architecture nor Spain.
Tet us take the three points their order.. There is no Central Government" to-day, nor any in sight for to-morrow. All that can predicted—and here, as everywhere in China, the prophet might wisely save his breath—is that probably the Chinese Government of the distant future will be the offspring of the Kuomintang, and that therefore any form of intervention must reckon with the fact that the party of the South is the party of the future, Meanwhile the intervening foreigner—if intervention is to serve its appointed purpose—must take charge not only of communications, but of civil administra-and before intervention is a month old the Foreign Powers will be the Government of China. Are the "prepared for that result?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.