May 26.
"THE purpose of the foregoing article,"" says Dr. Wellington Koo in another column today, i not to present a. criticism but an analysis.'' Tt will, s. be regretted by. some Excellency had been less inasmuch as there are few who could so well have criticized, with knowledge. of both Chinese and British standpoints and with certainty of not being misunderstood on either side. But a little reading between the lines shows that the analysis is indeed a very skilfully directed criticism. As we have said more than once recently, it matter of genuine distress to British residents in China that the relationships of two peoples, between whom there is so much real community of interest and feeling, should latterly -Lave suffered from friction. We leave it to those better versed 1o think what Dr. Wellington Koo means by his reference to business methods which the new generation in China would like revised. But we specially thank him for his recognition of the fact that responsibilities of _administration must of themselves occasion friction, though unjustly, in the present age of national consciousness and sensitive patriotism.
There was never a time in the history of Shanghai when cool looking ahead was so much needed as now. The blunders of Young China in her eagerness and the dissensions of politicians, which so greatly tend to obscure vision, do not alter the fact that anew China is emerging from the confusion and disappointments of the past ten years. The ideal Republic may not be born just yet and Tuchuns may continue to flourish for several years tocome. But it is no exaggeration to say that the peo-. ple are slowly beginning to tind themselves and are, perhaps, already ahead of their rulers. And against the day when their thought takes the form of action, we have to ask ourselves what is going to become of Shanghai. The Land Regulations are indeed a wonderful charter. It is amazing, when we think that the men who framed them - cannot have dreamed that Shanghai would be even what it is now, that they should have proved so elastic. But they cannot be stretched much farther and it is certain that some new instrument of government will have to be devised. On the other hand, we do not believe that Shanghai can ever wholly be handed back to the control of the Chinese Government, even when extraterritoriality is abolished. The interests that compose it are too rich and too world-wide. But that it can remain in perpetuo exclusively governed by foreigners we do not believe either; and one imagines its future as a sort of protected state, jointly administered by. foreigners and Chinese and with boundaries befitting its population and commercial and industrial weight.
The difficulty with which Shanghai has had to contend in the past is that the Chinese Government and people have consistently regarded its aims and suggestions as inspired purely by foreign self-interest. The difficulty still is the irre—concilability of Chinese who ask too much and of foreigners who maintain that they have already given more than is reasonable. But the influence of both. is: waning, of the Young China extremist and the old foreign Tory; and the time is ripening, for those with sufficient statesmanship to look ahead and say boldly that the aspirations. of Young China and the interest of the foreigner are not in conflict, but that, with the patience on one side and forbearance on the other which Dr. Wellington Koo preaches, they can and shall be harmonized in common. purpose of mutual satisfaction.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.