Mar. 23.
When Wu Tze-hui wrote to Feng Vu-hsiang (as reported in Priday's "North China News") Feng found his reply, as had so many statesmen and politicians before him, in the "San Kuo" or Romance of the Three Kingdoms, undoubtedly the most influential book Chinese literature. In the 94th chapter appears the following speech by the heroic philosopher Kung. Ming (Chu-kuo Liang)
You hoary-headed old fool!
you grey-haired rebel! Mark you, clay is your last day; this day even you descend to the Nine Springs. How will you stand before the two score and four emperors of Han that you will meet there?
Kung Ming killed his op: ponent with a paragraph, but Wu Tze-hui survived to' send Feng Vu-hsiang another telegram admonishing him to behave.
The purpose of this search for texts wus not to find analogies but rather to indicate the sources of the masterly invec tive which Feng Vu-hsiang employed. It is amazing how often brilliant speeches and essays among the Chinese are" mere notations or adaptations of quotations, not so much from the classical philosophic. literature as from this encyclopedic novel, which may now be obtain ed ina translation by Mr. C. Brewitt-Taylor. What Aristotle was to a medieval schoolman, what the Hebrew Bible is. toa Fundamentalist, that the Sav Kuo is to most Chinese. For instance, the other day 1 was discussing the wisdom of General Chiang Kai-shek's tour of the Kiangsu and Chekiang forts at the moment of General Isishan's threat to establish a government in Peking. Various explanations were offered and then one friend turned to the Sex Kuo and found therein similarity—a dissertation on how a war could be won by the ap: pearance of nonchalance.
The question ly arise us to whether politicians, mil tarists and statesmen who ar studied by such a no ly understand the 1 current China. Would it not for instance, be more advantage ous to China if her statesmen ead the China Year Book rather than the San Kuo, if they fami-Viarized themselves with genera! history rather than the somewhat mythical activities Chu-kuo Liang, who employee winds and demons to defeat bar parians of the Szechizan marches—now conveniently called kong, if you know where that is. It is said that some states gather courage and strength from the biographical writings of Tseng Kuo-fan, the hero of the Taiping Rebellion, which is. fter all, poor comfort when ne Ma could think of no better financial mea: than likin and the sale neither of which China has yet recovered. Does this not open a new field for interesting. polit. ical speculation—how much harm' has been lone to Chit by her literature? Perhaps Dr.
Shih or Mr. Lin Vu-chang can write Ieurnedly on this subject. It would be an interesting study, which cannot be made by a foreigner because few foreigners combine a knowledge of Chinese literature with an experience in Chinese official psychology; yet. somehow Feng Vu-hsiang's te-sort to this novel to answer Wu Tze-hui does make one wonder. How far back must one look to find the descent of an idea in modern China?
Zone A
The other day, in an article on the Grey Zone, I described the possibilities of a China, united in culture and. spirit, but divided administratively according to inevitable political condi-ions. The entire conception of zoning is exceedingly offensive to Chinese because it implies a ly division of the country, a dissection of the nation, an antinationalistic conception of the political organization of China, In fact, the mere suggestion of such a possibility is abhorrent to current Chinese thought. Yet, why should that be so? Actually, Yen Hsi-shan is threatening to establish a rival government in Peking; Manchuria is fairly autonomous and Nanking grows increasingly strong in spite of the loss of territory due to political defections. In Mr. Soong's annual report, he indicated how few provinces supported the National Government financially; yet the Government raised more money without increasing the taxes but because of superior administration—perhaps because an administration can be superior in-a small area. When the foreigners talk of unification and stabilization, they invariably.think of the whole of the continent called China; yet their whole experi ence shows that one region may be fully unified a while another may be in throes of war.
Let us take the territory over which Nanking has more or less definite control at the present time: Kiangsu, Chekiang, Anhui, Shantung, Fukien, Kiangsi, Kuangtung, Kuangsi and Hupeh. It may be argued that I should have omitted Shantung and Anhui and inserted Hunan, but for practical purposes, let us admit unquestioned control in the nine provinces indicated, where if there is not full control by Nanking, such control may be achieved if there is nothing else to worry about. This combined territory has an area of 448,578 square miles or approximately the urea of France, Germany, Denmark, Belgium and the Irish Free State, a grouping of nations and problems as complicate ed as anything presented in China, Furthermore, as to population, this zone has an estimated population of 215,727, 027 (Post Office 1926 figures) or nearly one-half of the population of the entire country although in area it ix about one-quarter of the country. In this region some ik. Tls. 45,000,000 or nearly 66 per cent. of the Maritime Customs revenue (all sources) was collected in 1927. Shanghai alone brought about 46 per cent. of the Customs revenue. One might carry this statistical study very far to how the percentage of colton mills, tobacco factories, silk filatures, electric light plants, shipping, ete., in zone "A" as compared with, let us say, the Grey Zone or the Peking zone or buna, but it is all too of Zone rests on Canton and) Hankow. Even if one were to move one angle from Hankow, let us say to Kiukiang, it would make little differen: for the economic heart of China ig Shanghai, with its International Settlement, which is, at the present juncture, China's greatest asset.
Now, thi fe, populous wealthy zone, nearly twice - as Jarge and eighteen times as populous as Turkey, is a mighty big. part of the Earth's surface for any body of men to, govern. If any political leader can put such a place in order and can start it off om a career of progress and prosperity, his niche in the world's history is quite secured. If in such an area, any man can' make the people healthy and-literate, he will go down to posterity as 2 great man, This is perhaps all very crudely put, but the facts are there. The job of reconstructing and rehabilitating China is so. colossal that it would. undoubtedly save time, money and human life to do it piece-meal, That is not as" satisfying -to one's an tour propre as issuing a proclamation declaring it all done, but in the long run, the results will be infinitely more satisfactory—and there will be less civil wa This concept is neither new nor original. Many have at various times advocated it in one form or another, but each time, it is shouted down because it is feared that the "imperialls tie foreigners" would take advantage of China, But since March 1927, the Chinese people have ample grounds for assuming that the principal Powers will never take advantage of China's weakness, If they did not do it then, they will not do it now. For, after all, what the Powers seek is peace among themselves and they cannot afford that China be a cause for jealousy and hatred amongst them. 'That is China's greatest safely, for it, in reality, provides China' an international guarantee of safety while she is experimenting with modernization,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.