So much limelight has been divecte ed on Far Eastern polities during the past year that I can safely spare myself the effort to review the state of affairs in any great detail, The Manchurian conflict has, of course, been the dominant tenture and about it I need only say that the disastrous state of uncertainty which it has brought in ite train has been a very serious factor in the trade depression in this part Jof the world, which makes us doubly anxious for the first appearance of a move towards a settlement.
In China's purely domestic affairs the last twelve months brought no important changes, Such war took place were, happily, local and relations Bo Nanking andthe provinces, have not materially altered. If the has left any lesson it is, 1 would he old lesson of period we may rest content, with ther return of widespread mar go by without any fu fare, Another, hopeful feature is the ich "the Government has made in dealing with the bandit. communist movement. Readers of the Lytton Report will have noted serious terms in which. ib speaks of this movement, xeferving it-as "an actual vival to the areas in the central Yangtze regions, signifying Soviet rule and complet closure to traffic he surround= ing districts, During the summer General Chiang Kai-shek conducted a military drive resulting in the clearance of the areas in qucs= tion, the red retreating to the remote regions of the West. drive against the other great' communist stronghold in central and southern Kiangsi is said to be now preparing, Though Hankow has been saved and relief brought to the [where of central China, the task 13 far from accomplished, Apart from the fact that the defeated red {forces still remain in existence, the [whole problem of combatting cor munism is, as General Chiang. publicly said, essentially economic, When the house has been swept and garnished it must not be left empty, im other words, the vacuum created by the destruction of the communist regime must be filled by the 1g up of new local govern-methods and men must. be jguch as to improve conditions of fife for the peasants and ensure [them against the old oppression and misery which were more than any-[thing else, the real introducer, of communism. The, Jand resettle"
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.