Fe, 9, Wit the war in Europe was raging Punch published a cartoon showing an old lady about to buy herself w new skirt and soliloquising that she had better do it now because "peace might be upon us at any moment." Peace has burst upon us in Shanghai! with somewhat startling suddenness and both we and the Chinese are nonplussed by the calm that has succeeded the storm, The' Chinese commanders, up to the/ Jast minute before the negotiations had reached a favourable termination, were madly enlisting troops to carry on the struggle and supply the wastage of war. Now, they are puzzled to know what to do with the men they have got. The problem of disbandment has to be faced and it has its own perplexities, Those who indulged in the pastime of sowing dragon's teeth see now a harvest of armed men and he who Jeads an army in this country jose phrase, "riding It is dificult to manipulate the steed and it hazardous to yet off; the beast might turn on its master. And. 480 we find Marshal Tuan Chi-jui ordering the Military Reorganization Commission to. submit a series of conundrums to the Conference now gathered in Peking. One is "How to make a general provision for the disbanded troops," Perhaps some delegate to the Conference will move the previous question and inquire; who is to command, say, Chang! Tao-lin to disband his troops and tell him how many soldiers he may retain in his army? We have seen a part of that army in Shanghai and, for the first time, had a glimpse of Chinese troops worthy to be called soldiers. They were well clothed, well equipped and, presumably, well paid. Their appearance reflected credit on their Commander-in-chief, not only Fiald Marshal, but as an ade! ministrator. The area of the three provinces over which Chang Tso-lin holds sway is 363,700 square miles, or about three times the size of the British Isles. The largest estimate of the population states it as some 20,000,000 souls. Manchuria is, potentially, rich beyond the power of computation and, actually, is almost the best governed part of China, Its resources must have been well husbanded to enable its ruler to put ip the field an army: of, approximately, 130,000 men without an undue strain on his treasury or any need to raise' loan, either foreign or domestic.
If we compare Manchuria with Kuangtung, the part of China that most resembles it in complete "independence of control from the Central Government, we! find that the Southern Principal ity has an area of just 100,000 square miles, less than one third of the three Eastern Provinces which comprise Manchuria, but has a population of 35,195,036, which is' more than three-fourths Jarger than that of the Northern
"tung also, territory. "The wealth of Kuang.
probably, exceeda.that, of Manchuria in even 2 larger proportion. Yet, under the semi-
Bolshevist. rule of the Kuomintang, Kuangtung has sunk into condition of impotence. It no longer counts in the counsels of the nation. Or, at least it counts no more than does its neighbour, the, comparatively, insignificant province of Kuangsi. Under Chang Tso-lin's autocratic government Manchuria is prosperous and contented. Under the communistic Kuomintang Kuangtung is impoverished and mutinous._ In Manchuria there is at least, a modicum of liberty, equality and fraternity, In Kuangtung the methods of the Cheka and the red hand of the Soviet have curbed and crippled what was once the most progressive populace in China, But to return to the perplexing! question to be submitted to the Conference in Peking;—what is China to do with her surplus and to-be-disbanded troops? The question certainly looks difficult but, if handled with resolution }may not be so impossible solution as it seems. China inds sorely in need of the labour that those unnecessary soldiers could supply. Why! here is a whole continent without anything that, except by courtesy, can be called a road. The old tracks that were sufficient for Post roads in the days of the Empire are utterly out of date and even they have fallen into disrepair since despatches are no longer carried by courier from the Capital to Yunnan or Kashgar. There are canals to be dredged, rivers to be deepened and embanked, flooded areas to be drained and waste places, in the out-lying dependencies, to be reclaimed. There is certainly no lack of work to be done if men can but be set to labour at it. But, it will be objected, where is the money to come from for these labours of Hercules? The answer would seem to be that if Chang Tso-lin, a satrap ruling but twenty of the four bundyed million inhabitants of China, can find money to transport troops from Manchuria to Shanghai, to gain control of, no more than, a single lucrative district, surely there is wealth enough' in the whole country to undertake these works of a reconstructive and remunerative nature. China is not 80 much faced with a dilemma as with an opportunity. While the delegates to the Conference are weighing the question set to them by their Chief Executive the question will be testing them and the answer to it will decide whether they have in them the stuff of which statesmen are made or are, like their predecessors, only time serving politicians, Feb, 9, ATTENTION may be called to the letter from the British Acting Consul-General which appears on page 4 to-day, on the colleen tion of funds for the preservation of St. Paul's Cathedral For those who have not read what has already been printed on this subject we may recall that the danger arises from the pillars, which support the dome, having. been fillled with debris from the burning of the old Cathedral the Great Fire. Probably this method would have been strong} enough For all time if conditions had remained us they were in Sir Christopher Wren's day. But the disturbance of the sub-_ soil in the neighbourhood of the Cathedral by subterranean railways, sewers and mains generally, and the imposition of many heavy buildings round about are thought to have proved too much for-the London clay and one has even read of a tendency in the!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.