June 29.
Tue Chinese faculty for drafting rules and regulations has} often been commented on with} admiration not untinged by amusement, Whether it be a parliament to be elected, armies to be disbanded or a Soochow! creek ferry-boat to be restrained from loading her passengers up to the top of the funnel, some indefatigable secretary must be} set down to draft rules and regulations, which for length and} minuteness would leave a Chan-cory judgment panting in the rear. Between the invention of these thoughtful enactments and their practical observance, there is, of course, but slender relationship. It would almost seem as if, to the Chinese official mind, once the rules were laid down for how a thing should be done, it was the same as if it had been "done; for with such a° list of paternal instruction before him, who could have the slightest ex-; cuse for deviating from the narrow way? And so it is that since the Republic began we have seen mountains of rules and regulations om every conceivable subject, but neither regulation nor rule in the ordering of daily life.
It would, perhaps, be unkind! to suggest that the list of measures for the protection of the Tientsin-Pukou and Peking-Hankow railways from brigandage will but provide future historians with one more of these "monuments to the Republic's unfruitful youth. But there are circumstances about them which arouse misgiving. It is a terrible confession of weakness that both railways admit unblushingly that they can only run their trains in daylight. It looks very greatly in earnest in: spite of all the beautiful provisions about police patrols exchanging checks at certain points and a secret service force with an ear ever to the ground to detect the bandits' tread. When Chinese officials really mean business, we do not remember that they bother themselves much with rules and regulations. An order is given and, if it is not obeyed, somebody's head comes off. But the most dubious part about the regulations is the time at which they are announced to an ungrateful world. If there were to be any meaning in them, why were they not published weeks ago, even before the Lincheng outrage, when the presence of the bandits was perfectly well known and, China is indeed without a gov-jemment and that neither life nor trade is safe under the gross misrule and neglectfulness of her provincial satraps. While bandits derail trains and carry off passengers, the state of the ' Upper Yangtze has become an intoler-lable scandal. No ship can go {about her business without per-; Petual danger of being fired on and the protection afforded by foreign gui.boats is, to say the \least of it, insufficient to check {these outrages. In this respect it looks as if the Americans were the worst sufferers and while we sympathize with them we cannot altogether be sorry for anything which helps to convince the United States Government that the Washington Conference there is strong reason to believe, policy is hopelessly unworkable. that they meant to attack a train? Doubtless life in China tends to make one of a cold and suspicious cast of mind. But we cannot help associating the ap-' pearance of these rules and the Cabinet's decision to dismiss General Ho Feng-yn, Military Commissioner of Yenchow—he is a brother of General Ho Feng-ling of Kiangnan Arsenal and therefore has few friends in power in Peking just now—with the known fact that the Lincheng sanctions have been drawn up by the Diplomatic "Body and are now merely being submitted to} the Home Governments before presentation. We do not know what is in the note; but suppos-! ing it called for some control of the railways, what better answer could Peking have than to point to these measures? And supposing the note further required that somebody must be cashiered, "Why," Peking would cry, "'it has been done already."" In a word, Peking is much more set on disarming the alien than the bandit.
The trick will not serve. The Lincheng sanctions may or may not please the foreign community. But whatever they are, it is, we believe, quite safe to say that they will be carried through. It has-not been easy to bring all the Powers into line, to arouse public opinion at Home to the urgency of the need, to persuade chancelle-ies that China is a good deal nearer than the moon and considerably less tranquil. But the interest which big commercial associations have begun to take in hey affairs is beginning to have effect. Among those whom foreign offices cannot wholly {Sooner or later that conviction must come. It would save much trouble if the Powers would profit by the Lincheng outrage to apply the only remedy which will save China in her present state. [In this respect we can but hope for the best. But the sanctions should at any rate prove an earn-rest and a warning. They are mot to be foiled by measures for the protection of railways which Peking probably does not mean and certainly has no power to enforce.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.