The visit to Shanghai of the Panchen Lama is an event of considerable importance irrespective of the political conditions "which have transformed his position since the death of the Dalai Lamaand the question of a successor arose. The Panchen, Loma, who has just completed a long prayer meeting at Hangchow, the most outstanding religious figure in China and although he has not been in Tibet since 1924 he remains theoretically thereligioushead of the country. He fled to China in 1924 after differences with the Dalai Lama became acute and he had to!
Yeave Tashilumpo Monastery, where hho had spent the greater part of his life as a religious devotee, virtually worshipped by his followers but to all intents and purposes a recluse. On. to long trip from Tibet to Peking his progress was slow but was marked with great enthusiasm. From Peking came o Shanghai, paying his first visit to a semi-western _metropolis and marvelling at the sight of the products of western civilization of which he had heard only briefly from the lips of such explorers as General Younghusband and Sven' Hedin who had visited him at. his, monastery. On his journey from Peking the entire railway track was scattered with yellow sand, the mark of his exalted position, and'every sta-Vion was decorated with yellow" silk in his welcome. His latest journey has not been so vividly marked with such expressions of respect but nonetheless public welcome has not @iminished. No doubt his recent travels have considerably broadened his outlook necessarily cramped years of seclusion at Tashilumpo, but it would be incorrect to say that he has ignored the march of events, Endowed with a keen, perceptive mind, he has observed things from afar with a degree of detachment which places them in a proper cate~ gory. He has always been modern and it was largely due to him that important educational and adminis-{trative reforms were introduced in Tibet, these being the result of a visit to India in 1903. Political dimeulties have tended to divorce him from the Jand of his birth and the question of his return remains in the hands of the parties struggling for supremacy in. Tibet, but there is no denying eminent qualities as a leader,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.