Yet the optimists are few, thi pessimists many, and even in the newspaper articles purporting t {support united effort in diplomacy, [there is a marked Tack Jenthusiasm. Outside diplomatic ie circles the' official Chinese here i peculiarly glum and in the matte displays "no enthusiasm "whatever, Conversations run something Tike thi "Well, how are things in th Government?" you ask.
"Bad," growls the general.
"You've been in Shantung ly; how did you find the sit tion?"
"Artal; hopeless!"
Have you heard lately wha it's Tike in Honan and. Feng's other territories?"
"Yes; terrible."
"What do you think of the Nationalists in the South?"
"Confused "beyond words smashed beyond repair." hear there's to be unity in diplomacy abroad and then a more aggressive diplomatic policy; what do you think of "Nonsense. No one under heaven can' be deceived now. China's hopeless and everybody Knows it. Nationalism destroyed faith in China. They're too dis-usted abroad now to he interest ed. The right kind of pro-Paganda a few years ago might have brought intervention to save China, Now they don't think we're worth it, and talk of China's fature is a tiresome jok The Dampening of Ardour Such liverish convereatiias as this are carried on net only by the eideriy"conaervative with "mins ted ern young men aswell, Tie the past, bat" by ultra
Bloomiest of all indeed are' those who have been south to. sample Nationalism and have come back to forget it. A great deal of material also comes through the mails, from England and America particularly to dampen the ardour of those who Still Took forward to better times and to convince ne all that the very Keen interest. displayed in China leas. than year" ago. is such wretched, sputtering' little flame row that even the most sensational news is no fuel to it, The thousands of sympathetic {idealists who 20 Intely put faith in hina's rejuvenation through. the 'Nationalist" movement are gusted as the "diechards" are indifferent. That the whole performance was a barbarous. burlesque upon a patriotic' movement under Soviet direction is now taken for granted in circles where. such thought would have been heresy a year ago—notably in British labour Zireleo—while those who used to be called' "die-hards" areas cer that' nothing will "be done for Ghina because of this revulsion of feeling "og they were formerly certain that China was doing nothing good for herself, and are therefore bored by any discussion of prospects.
Newspaper Attitude The proof that these are the points of view of those who were 0 eager for news of China Ghroughout the first half of 1927 to be found in the reiterated. instructions of editors of American and Br newspapers. to" corre pondents in this country, The a sertion that no news is of value unless it is very big news, or that noone. cares what happens. China, is as brutally put now in such orders as it was during the war when all tention was focussed upon Europe. The rudest explanation that has reached tus has come to the correspondent of an American Papers which gladly: absorbed! hun-Areda of columns of sympathetic understanding of Nationalism last ing. This letter explains that news of China is. not. wanted because 'America has decided that the "the Chinese area sub-human' people." Exon Senator Bingham seems to be nsitive to this popular attitude ind to realize that as a politician, stepped out with the wrong foot pon his return from China, for he
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.