Aug. 1.
The Chinese Government will be making a grave mistake if it persists in enforcing the proposed economic reprisals against Japan. So far, although in-' clined at times to rely too much onthe League and Foreign Powers, it has. maintained a sound' and dignified policy of protest in the face of Provocation. In con-with its pledges to the gf Nations, it mJendeavoured to keep on the lines ate self-defence and to its international obliga tions. 'The ejection of the Customs, Salt and Post Office from Manchuria by force has given it strong complaint; its' anticipation of action over the Post Offices by suddenly announcing a complete evacuation has been justified and cham-piened by' this journal. The issue now tends to become confused by certain plans, either contemplated or actually set in train. The Government is faced with two main problems: the restoration of the finances which fare in a most serious state, the maintenance of China's integrity, with Japanese aggression still active in the North. Proposals, ostensibly designed to serve these two objects at one and the same time, are not likely to be effective. The administration which attempts to put them into force is in the position of a man who straddles two horses unevenly yoked. For nearly eleven months now China has, more or less faithfully, followed the line lof her pledges at Geneva, ithouglt a too complaisant_ at" titude towards the boycott folly has exposed her to criticism. Before many weeks are out, the Lytton Report will have been presented to Geneva. It seems the height of madness to break drastically away from thos pledges by taking action whic can have the effect only of further complicating China's already complicated internal position and of palliating such offences as have been committed by, or in the name of, Japan. If the problem be viewed in the purely financial light, it is still more difficult to approve. Postal Jevacuation from Manchuria is jone- thing; a postal blockade, [however permissible, in the circumstances, by international obligations, is another. It is as objectionable as Customs [blockade which is also tentatively mooted. The withholding of ithe Boxer Indemnity money loomes within the same category.
Not one of these three mei sures is necessary to the assort tion of China's refusal to re-Jeognise Manchukuo. Whatever revenue they may yield will be grievously counterbalanced by losses inevitably accruing from them in other directions, to say nothing of their direct invitation' to Japan, as the man in possession, to answer economfe violence with a force which can, almost for the first time, find some leolour of moral sanction. Clearly la. Customs blockade of Manchuria must divert trade from China ports through Japan. A postal blockade can be overcome, again with loss to China's leconotnic relations with lchurid and elsewhere. Indeed, a time when the stimulation lof trade is essential to the all-important problem of restoring the country's finances, the Gov-jemment al Nanking appears to think only in terms of further clogging if not of destroying, that vital artery. Not long ago conference was held at Kuling with the intellectuals of China, those men were deserving of {their name they certainly could not have counselled adoption of Imeastres so short-sighted and 80 plainly calculated to prejudice China's case at Geneva, Mr. Soong appears to have been overborne by influences to which a Finance Minister should—be specially impervious in such a crisis as this, He is credited with being a realist, He must know therefore that' the loss of Manchuria, however the Lytton [Report proceeds to judgment, is fact to be faced. It can' be faced with equanimity because, except for the service of the ¥oreign Loans,' Manchuria's leon tribution to' the Centr Revenues has not been remake lo, Chin curse is to rest content with the knowledge—or beliet—that, in the long run, her historic associations with Manchuria's destiny will prevail. To postpone the event nothing could be better devised than "economic severance relations between that territory and China, It is playing the game of Japah with truly surprising enthusiasm. As a Izestute to enforce the view that China's financial misfortunes. fare in the main due to Japan it delivers what might be a kneel out blow. to all possible plans for consolidating ational unlity South of the Great Wal by curtailing already heavily diminished resources. It is reverting most inopportunely and dangerously to the policy of pinpricks, not when the enemy is, merely quiescently on guard but [when he is in the full is wrath. It affords whelming proof of the blindness lof the Government to the long-standing need of getting into diplomatic touch with Japan and arriving at a temporary working arrangement pending" Geneva's decision, It throws off the dignified posture of self-defence in favour of a recklessly puny gesture of attack, the chief consequences of which must recoil jon the head of the attacker.
Desp is the financial situation, the policy of coping with it must be carefully framed and denuded of all but purely financial intentions. Clumsiness seems to be dogging the Government's actions. It can be remedied only by an early revision of plans, projected and initiated. For example, can it be contend. led that the ' proposed Consular certification of invoices will mean the accretion of funds to the national revenues here? The Government has not the machinery abroad, nor the power of controlling it, to ensure such results, If revenue has to be increased the only effective way fof achieving that object is by collection within the immediate purview of well-established Gov-jemment departments, disciplined land staffed to that end. In this land the other proposals, which assure the maximum amount of reference with China's tr: and the minimum of political advantage," the Government seems tobe overtaken by frenzy of despair which is justified in no sense by any lack of sympathy with Ching's. difficulties. To risk at the; eleventh hour the forfeiture of; that sympathy is, on the. lowest grounds, a tactical blunder. It is all the worse because it is certain to accentuate internat'
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.