Nov, 18.
The resignation of Judge John C. H, Wu from the Presidency of the Provisional Court more than two months before his visit to Harvard would have obliged him to go, leaves an unpleasant taste. When Judge Wu took office on August 23 he said that law was his idol; and he went on: "To stick to law at all costs is, in the long run and on the whole, the best way of serving the country." It is Qo more than truth to say that Judge Wu has fully lived up to his professions. He has conducted the Provisional Court with ability, and under his regime there has been a marked absence of the distressing disputes once too prevalent. Now it is an open secret that he has resigned sooner than assist the politicians in their designs on the Sheng Kung-pao fortune, the illegality of which nor recognizes better than he. The State Council's mandate of September 17 ordering the Sheng estates to be sealed and confiscated was issued without reference to Judge Wu. For so ihe weeks the matter appears not to have been brought officially to his notice and Judge Wu is understood. to have done his utmost by private representations to dissuade the politicians from their purpose. These failed and there was nothing left for Judge Wu but to resign, Chinese officials are usually allowed the courtesy of three resignstions before they are reluctantly allowed to withdraw. It is significant that Judge Wu's first was immediately accepted.
There is no pleasure in faultfinding, but it is impossible to pass over such incidents in silence. It seems incredible that the politicians cannot see the harm they are doing to China and her desires to be rid of for~ eign jurisdiction in all forms. Judge Lu Hsing-yuan's. refusal to abet them was a large, if not the principal, cause of his being driven from office. Judge Ho Shih-tseng, after what appeared to be a rather ominous ion, undoubtedly did his best to manage the Court cleanly: he, too, went because he would not submit to back stairs political coercion, And now Judge Wu. There is of course no question but that these facts are noted by foreign officials, and the glaring contrast they present with Na King's asseverations of the in-[dependence of Chinese courts. The question is not whether the Sheng fortunes were or were not built up by illicit means-— for that matter we do' not sup-]ed, as the people of the world pose anybody could give an] authoritative verdict—but of the} means used to get possession of them. In so grave a matter as the confiscation of the estate of a man who died eighteen years ago, the most scrupulous observance of legal procedure is demanded, minute investigation by duly appointed commissioners, official report of all findings, and lastly legal proceedings before one or more judges. Govermments cannot take the law into their own hands, and any government, it might be supposed, would be particularly [careful to avoid any appearance of doing so in a case like that lof the Sheng estate. The inevitable reflection is, If these things are done in the green and conspicuous shade of the Provisional Court, what shall be done in the dry wastes of the interior, far from prying eyes? We know that the Provisional Court is nut popular with Chinese oficial They resent the participation of foreigners even so shackled as the Deputies are in any Chinese case. This, however, is no reason for lowering the prestige of. the Court, but exactly the reverse, This Court provides the finest opportunity in all China for proving to the world that Chinese justice is good enough for any man. That has been the aim of all its best judges. But the politicians appear wnable to see it,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.