Jan, 22.
'THe news received yesterday of the Diplomatic proval of certain dra: jie mea-Sures recommended by the Consular Body for the defence of Shanghai is most welcome. These measures are, briefly, that Chinese militarists. and politicians should nat. po, allowed usp... Shanghai, 94. an, from which to engineer their plots; and that contending troops should not be allowed within rifle shot of Shanghai. The telegrams received on these two points are not altogether clear, although we believe that the intention is as we have expressed it, and an official notification by the Consuls giving us the exact wording of the policy to be followed would be acceptanle, The execution of these measures may present same difficulty. How, it may be asked, are we to know when militarists and politicians are. plotting? Actually we cannot. But a. suggestion made in these columns some months ago may be recalled. It was, that when a Chinese general or politician takes refuge in Shanghai, he is thenceforward, as children would put it, "dead": if he afterwards Teaves the Settlements to take part in the game, he-has broken the rules and must under no conditions be readmitted, As for keeping a neutral zone of rifle shot depth about Shanghai, it is obvious that this cannot be done with the forces at present available. But those who have been pressing for such a zon for the occupation of certain parts of adjoining railways never contemplated such a procedure without additional forces.
At the moment of writing, Gen-feral Lu is saying that he will not go beyond Changchow unless attacked and Marshal Chi hardly seems in a position to advance beyond Wusih, But the situ tion changes so from day to day that no reliance can be put on statements of this kind nor should there be any delay in speeding up arrangements for the adequate defence of this immensely important area, Not the least welcome part of the news from Peking is the evidence it brings of the Diplomatic Body's recognition of the critical state in which Shanghai finds itself. That action of this kind is not always easy for them, we must fairly admit. The constitution of tie Diplomatic Body is not what it was even before the war, still less twenty-five ars ago, when there were tess than half the Powers represented in Peking than now are, and agreement on any given line of action was proportionately easier to get. Even before the war, all the ministers stood technically on the same footing and met on equal terms. To-day, not only have three of the former Great Powers lost their extraterritorial rights, so that their whole statue and viewpoint are changed; but' tone of them represents a Government which ix avowedly doing everything it can to destroy the Western peoples' position in Asia—and, i* may be added, Western people themselves as well, excent such as are ready to sell themselves to the tyre army of Communism. It follows, therefore, that the rest of the Diplomatic Body must be wary how they tread as the Soviet ambassador is ever alert to make capital out of any Sometimes, of course, Comrade Karakhan makes a slip himself. For example, when he is so anxious that all China's treaties should be "torn asunder and abolished," it is pertinent to ask him how his Government are carrying out their promises to China. For instance, in May, 1919, we think it was, the Bolshevik Government of Rus pledged itself to give back Mongolia to China, And this pledge it repeated in the Sino-Russian Treaty concluded early last year. But Mongolia remains as Mitch an appanage of Soviet Russia as ever.
One regrets that Dr. Schurman does not seem to have recalled this and other little forgetfulnesses of treaty obliga tions to China on. Comrade Karakhan's paxt, in the speech jat.the. Anglo-American Association dinner reported to-day.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.