Peking, June 6.
The local papers report that the Chinese Foreign Office has promulgated several new regulations to meet the bandit menace in China. These regulations are further said to have been forwarded to all the provincial Commissioners of Foreign Affairs.
Let no one suppose that the provincial authorities are called upon to suppress brigandage. Neither should the public labour under the delusion that foreigners are assured that their lives and property will henceforth be safe or that such enterprises as the Lincheng holdup will not be repeated. This is by no means the case.
What the Waichiaopu has actually done is to warn foreigners that no passports will be issued to them to travel in bandit-ridden areas, In other words the Chinese Government, reacting to the Lincheng affair, does not assume responsibility for making China safe for travellers, but puts upon foreign travellers the responsibility of keeping out of trouble in all parts of China in which bandits operate. One could now say with assurance that if the Powers agreed to the application of these regulations, foreigners would from this time forth travel at their own risk in about, nine-tenths of China's domains, including those areas crossed by the principal railways and particularly including those territories occupied by the largest and most efficient bodies of Chinese troops.
A BOLD MOVE TO SHIRK DUTY, The publication of these new rules governing the movements of fabric of treaty stipulations collapses when protection is no longer afforded. Business has no_ future in a country overrun from end to end by outlaws when the government of that country instead of making proper pledges of bettering conditions has the impudence to notify all and sundry that it will not be responsible for the safety of those who travel in bandit districts.
With the Lincheng affair still unsettled and the Diplomatic Body not yet prepared therefore to "xact guarantees of better order in China, it is truly astonishing to have the Foreign Office stepping in with an order for foreigners to keep out of the way of trouble.
It has already been suggested that the Diplomatic Body, when the time comes fo settling the Lincheng issue, should demand that within a period of three months foreigners should travel freely, with or without escort, in any and every district in the Republic of China and that both local and national officials should be held directly responsible for assaults upon either the persons or properties of such travellers. Such a measure would put the responsibility of using armed forces for other than personal political advancement upon the militarists. The new Foreign Office regulations exempt the militarists formally from such responsibility while they invite the foreign traveller, business man and to stay out of the greater part of China or to move about at his own risk. Such a shifting of responsibility is unheard of in the relations of nations and must elicit from the Diplomatic Body the sharpest possible rejoinder,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.