Jan. 19.
General Chiang Kai-shek again uttered a word in season when, at Nanking last week, he ex-borted the National Home Alfairs Conference to pay aitention to the "practical side of every issue" and to see that its decisions found practical expression and were not "merely high sounding." The temptation to elaborate programmes and to let performance dally on the road is great for any body of pol cians, It is especially potent. for the leaders of a Government which, above all things, is anxious to acquire prestige at the most rapid pace possible. To some extent failure to resist the temptation can be condoned. Time is ever the essence of the contract. If time can be gained by the mere formulation of ideas and ideals and, in that time, the position so well consolidated that arrears of action can be speedily made good, the discrepancy may be justified. There must however be a point at which the strain of unreality Decomes tod violent. Then the danger of the collapse of the whole machinery is likely to present itself in stark and relentless proportions. Probably, thoughts such as those coursed through the President's mind as. he delivered his warning, Noone knows better than he the difficulties which confront. his Government even at this stage when they have reached an exceptionally interesting point. in their career. In no mere spirit of perfunctory courtesy is the view expressed that the efforts which he and his colleagues are making to justify their leadership have evoked the sympathy and, in no small degree, the respect of thoughtful observers. The rest of the world—entangled as it is.unhappily at this moment in. the complexities of economic chaos cannot but hope that the Government at Nanking will
serious difficulties with which successfully mount the they are confronted. The con-sympathy. Finances, heavily] oppressed by the cost of ruinous strife, are requiring adjustment in the face of unparalleled world-depression, with a currency gravely depreciated, and with unification of the country still far to seek. Performance in such a state of affairs must necessarily be slow. It cannot possibly overtake promise unless extreme precipitancy in the drafting of programmes sedulously eschewed.
The Government have addressed themselves to the task of improving their revenue by promulgation of a new They have endeavoured by negotiations to establish with the erstwhile recalcitrant North relations which may, in_ their elasticity "and recognition of the personal equation, prevent the dreaded repetition of previous wasteful struggles. They, are preparing for a Peopl Conference in May on tines which give the fullest possible credence to the doctrine of unification. Yet they know only. too well that, unless satisfactory steps can be taken to eliminate hostile influences, widespread and obstinate, the figment of unity will remain a figment and nothing more. Their immediate task, in other words, ix to translate that figment into fact. Reports, during the last few days, have shown how formidable the task is. It will be poor consolation for the supporters of the Government if the loosely fashioned rapprochement with the North is the only tangible sign of their control of a unified China. The prospects in the bandit-ridden areas of the Middle! Yangtze, and the virtual isol tion of Yunnan and Szech cannot be flattering to the idea that the cessation of war with. the North has created conditions which can be treated as normal for the purposes of. reconstruction. The gradual. paralysis, which has been creeping over the country owing to. the long immunity of the communist bands, demands action. For a Government unencumbered by other anxieties the task would be grave enough; for the present Government of China it is so formidable as to evoke the people and a constant source of] future trouble for the Government.
The urgency of the towards the South is The problem is not necessarily beyond the wit of Gezeral Chiang Kai-shek and his colleagues to solve but it would be doing them less than justice to refuse to recognize its gravity.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.