Mar. 29.
For months past close obser vers of Chinese events have felt that war must come, and still ave hoped against hope that it might be averted. They told themselves that the pressure of public opinion was too strong now for any general to risk the odium that would fasten on the man who dared to make war, But public opinion has proved as useless as ever. The long-smouldering jealousies of Nanking and the Kuangsi party have burst into flame. So far back as the Financial Conference of last June the Wuhan Govern: ment had shown plainly that they meant to' keep the management of their affairs in thei own hands and in essentials they never given in, Skilful employed in the formation of the Five Council Govern. ment last October enable General Chiang Kai-shek to. <tonounce the three Kuangsi teaders as rebels: they "are found to have been haughty and ty committed acts in the past without due respect to the law;" "these three rebels are obstacles to the People's Revolution and traitors to the Three Principles; "the peaceful motives of th National Government have made these rebels more haughty and uncontrollable." So they are cashiered and ordered to be arrested for investigation and punishment, and the Government's troops are to advance to the attack.
But technical claims deceive To the onlooker there is nothing to choose between and Nanking.—Indee many will incline to think th ug Kai-shek' own the root cause of all itis recently publish-crances fill one with cement. The Soit of Heave never spoke more grandiloquent-Is, never demanded more—un: questioning submission. And Chinese ask themselves why after all is General Chiany in what does the bound authority he claims over others consist General Li Eh throats. To accuse G of plotting revolt ix manifest absurd: had he been guilty, would nev self so freely and frankly within the walls of Nanking. From the moment, too, of his arrival i Shanghai, General Li plainly threw all his weight om the side of a settlement. in interview. he gave his personal assurance that there should be no fighting.
soon as he arrived Nanking he was virtually freely to his friends; his letters were read; even in the Congress he was surrounded with spi Finally, he gave himself up. referring actual imprisonment to sham freedom. It is a black story and one can only pray it has not had the blacker ending which was. so persistently reported yesterday What the outcome will be, where the fighting will spre: to before it is over, no one can tell. A swift, sudden stroke by Nanking might have finished th: matter before Kuangsi had colix furious at Li Chi-sen's arrest prepares to march an army into Hunan, Whether it succeeds or not, the mere attempt gives the Communist leader Chu Mao an opening to descend from the lls and harry Fukien, For that one can tell from Chefoo by Chang Chung-chang and all the peace of Shantung, such as it was, is threaten-
Moreover, throughout Anhui and southern Honan the brigand forces will reassert themselves, the pressure of operations against them is removed owing to the war on Wuhan, Though General Feng Vu-hsiang delays to declare himself, it is impossible that he should not be drawn jin presently. Here are elements lof discord which may keep China in anarchy and civil w: wretchedness indefinitely.
The failure to arrive settlement by peaceful means is, in all the circumstances of the case, a monstrous crime. What, at bottom, is the quarrel, but whether Hupeh and Hunan should have the spending of their money or hand it over to Nanking? "And although we hold no brief of any kind for the Wuhan Government, whose record is as bad as that of most provincial authorities, Nanking has no such reputation for the management of the money it has had as to entitle it to be trusted with more, In the heat of this miserable" exhibition of self secking, the welfare of the Chinese people counts for naught, 'The Third Party Congress issues a manifesto of 5,000 words. dwelling on the Kuomintang' solicitude for the people's suite: ings. For practical purposes, these professions are not worth 5,000 cash. We have no caste in China, but the Brahmin's contempt for the "depressed classes" of India is not greater than th indifference with which the Chinese intelligentsia regard the humbler countrymen. There are individual exceptions, of course. We speak of mass thinking and general effects. From the out. set, Nationalism's failure and withering disappointment has been due to its utter inability to take first things first. When Peking fell, any statesman would have seen that large constitutional questions were of secon ary importance and must wait, The first essential was to restor order, cut down the army and reduce taxation, for which pu bose such machinery of government as still existed within each province might have—been utilized, each working independently in its own domain, thong' towards a certain broadly: fined plan, As an illustration lof what needs to be done, heard only yesterday of " band of Kompo brigands descending on Tsungming Island, where, having cleaned out their own country north of the river, they were last reported to be living lon the villagers with cruel pression. That sort of thing is doing on all over China. But who 8? The inten: squabbles of the politicians and are: among them, blinds militarists as to which shall 8
them to of fine thousand-word nifestoes, posturing for the deceptive of for ign Powers, in but hard work and thor for thole ing's Punitive Ma Snould they (the Kuan have to say to the people, who hope for peace order?" But what will they as things are in fact, to the people whose hopes and whose endless patience have been so bitterly rewarded?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.