Launching Ceremony Done by Mrs. Quo Tai-chi London, Oct. 12.
Changkiang, China's first train ferry was launched to-day by' Madame Quo Tai-chi, wife of the Chinese Minister in London. The vessel is 372 feet, long with a dead weight of 1,550 tons, and will be used to convey trains over the Yangtze river from Nanking to) Pukow. Tt can carry three trains with a total of 21 wagons. It cost £70,000 to build, Dr. Wei Cheng-chen, Charge d'Affaires, in a speech at the launching ceremony, declared that the new vessel is symbolical fof the unification of China, He, said it also signifies the co-opera tion that exists between British industries and Chinese enterprises.
Dr. Wei said there was necessity of an even closer understanding and ce-operation, and he felt sure that if commerce and industry were left alone without political meddling, relations between the two countries could not be otherwise than satis-
But this scheme of demilitarisation would appear to be too Utopian and quite out of touch with the alities of the situation. "The arguments on which the petitioners base their project are however perhaps worth discussing in detail, beau they touch on the political' situation of present-day Peking. To begin with, it is sheer nonsense for them to say that Peking is of no strategie value any more, a city which Ties at the junction of three trunk lines, two branch Iines—East and West,—not to mention the motor-and to Jehol, the main line of communication with "that nowadays much talked-of province. The st tically-minded "educationalists say that Shanhaikuan is the strategical position for the troops, But how are they going to defend Jehol from there? This {s just what happened to Wu Pei-Fu in 1924, when Feng Yushsiang betrayed him and with drawing from the Jehol front fell upon nim from the rear. Peking fact, the one and only strategical position in the whole North, "The that, if the Nationalists had not moved the capital from Peking, they ould not so easily have fast Man 'The' petition suggests that the Branch Military Council here, which represents the authority in. the North at the present time, could be moved to somewhere else. But whoever wants to control the North, must hold Peking; and China being what it is to-day any person or body will have to Keep its troops close fo hand, President Tsao Kun and Tuan Chijul were both overthrown, because they had no troops at their immediate disposal,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.