'Mr. Lenox Simpson, reporting to his local paper, the "Far Bastern Times,' from Mukden, quotes statements from General Yang Vu-ting, Chief of Staff and senior military councillor to Chang Tso-lin, which will be of extreme interest to both Karakhan and the Diplomatic Body, because they constitute a frank defiance of the latter. General Yang discussed with (Mr. Simpson the suggestion embodied in the Lincheng note that the railway police be brought under foreign supervision and, among other things, is reported to have said "T tell you plainly in Manchuria we would resist by force the entry of any foreign controlled police in our territory—We should fire on them just as any other self-respecting country would do."
This is a challenge, in forceful terms, which no foreigner in China will or ought to accept gracefully. Anyone who moves in Chinese official circles will understand at once that no such statement could have been made without inspiration from the outside. No Chinese official, not even Chang Tso-lin himself, would slap 16 foreign Powers in the face in this fashion unless he believed that he was safely under the wing of some other Power competent to protect him. There are only two possible guesses at the source of Gen, Yang's inspiration. When he talked thus boldly his '"'control'' was either Japan or Soviet Russia. The Japanese have certainly been opposing the scheme for the control of railway police, but their opposition has been more spontaneous than studied and would appear to have been founded more upon the logical conviction that the scheme would not work than upon any. subtle political motive.
The writer's personal guess would be that when Gen. Yang was talking with Mr. Simpson he was labouring under the de-lusian that Chang John had brought Karakhan up to the mark and that Manchuria was
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.