Mr. Anthony Eden, who at times is positively revealing. has given the House of Commons another of those brilliant glimpses into the obvious in his reference to the position of the western trading nations in China:—"One used to regard. China as one of the great expanding markets of the world, but whatever else happened in the Far East there is going to be great impoverishment. They have gone through untold suffering, and when it is over I think the position of western nations will not be better than when it began." The Sino-Japanese hostilities have been responsible for an enormous amount of suffering, ' so great that its utmost limits may never be known, so lasting that it may be generations before China again reaches the condition which existed at the time of the outbreak of the struggle. The devastation which has been wrought, the trek of millions of Chinese in destitution from their homes where they could manage to eke out a meagre living, the death and misery which has been inflicted upon them, can have no other effect than to administer to the country a setback, the recovery from which will of necessity be slow. That even the Japanese recognize. Hence the grandiose schemes for the speedy rehabilitation of the districts under their control schemes, which at any rate at the moment give no great signs of any bewildering rapidity. Shanghai and its environs may be taken as an example, for though the Japanese have been in possession for just.over a year if anything towards restoration has been attempted, what has been done barely touches the fringes of what is necessary. establishment of a at Nanking and a new municipality around Shanghai has progressed little beyond the formation of administrations which have not got into any sort of stride, and give no signs of immediately doing so. A few men who can properly be looked upon as leaders have come forward, but, with all the best intentions in the world, they are hampered by what has been inflicted upon their people, and the poverty which has resulted.
Any who believe that the touch of some magic wand can restore conditions to what they were before last August are bemused in their thinking. The process of rebuilding this portion of China cannot be reasonably expected to be any quicker than the slow restoration which took place after the catastrophe of the Taiping Rebellion.
That Japan is anxious to be about speedy rehabilitation may be readily believed. That she will do her utmost to achieve it may also be accepted, and while the plans which have been revealed up to the present are obviously designed for a profitable exploitation of the military successes which have been gained, there is at present little to show that the Japanese are much concerned in any scheme of rehabilitation of the Chinese which does not bring to themselves an immediate return. Indeed Japan is financially unable to undertake all of the huge task of a quick rehabilitation,.— even if the Chinese would enthusiastically ce-operate, which is by no means sure— and utterances of their leaders and their newspapers indicate that it is hoped eventually to attract foreign capital to participate in the task. But that is all they want—foreign financial assistance for a trade to be made as exclusively Japanese as possible. he meaning of Japanese statements in th respect has all along been perfectly obvious.
They wish the western Powers to relinquish their trading activities and adopt the role of money lenders, wiping out the very substantial interests which have been created in the past century and providing financial assistance for the policy of the Closed Door.
Unless this scheme can be thwarted, Mr.
Eden will have been proved to be perfectly correct when he thinks that the position of western nations in China will not be better than when hostilities began. Indeed it will be very demonstrably worse, and the only way of saving what still remains after a year's enthusiastic wrecking is to insist upon the fulfilment of those obligations so clearly set forth in the Nine Power Pact.
Successful insistence upon that essential is of benefit not only to the western nations whose interests are now threatened, but also to the Chinese themselves, who, if Japan is permitted to proceed unhindered with her present plans, will in a very short time be reduced to a state of economic helotry for which it is not easy io find a parallel in history. The eradication of free competition for China's produce, and in the sale of imports would deny the ordinary benefits of commerce, forcing the Chinese producer to accept whatever the monopolistic buyer chooses to pay for his goods, and obliging him to pay inordinately for the imports which Japan would send to this country. It is for reasons such as these that there is every justification for Mr. Cordell Hull to hold that the Japanese reply to the American Note on the subject of the violation of the Open Door policy is unsatisfactory. There is very little likelihood that the further explanations which Tokyo promises to give will contribute $18 anything towards the improvement of the situation, for in the reply itself there is sufflcient indication that Japan is rejecting the principles established by the Nine Power Pact upon grounds which will not bear the slightest critical examination. But even if the pressure which the western nations must bring to bear upon Japan in order that she will better and with sincerity appreciate the position succeeds, foreign interests need not expect a very rapid improvement in conditions in China. So much has been destroyed, so much wealth has vanished that the work of rehabilitation may very well prove a slow process. It will be quicker if all nations interested in the China trade are enabled to ce-operate upon the old basis of free and open competition permitting the Chinese to buy and sell in the best markets, for it is quite obvious that only by such means as will permit the Mgr us to regain and improve upon eir former standards of living can there be anything like the re-establishment of that former prosperity upon which the foreign trader so greatly depended.
Triumph and Tragedy In a world imperfectly balanced in regard to causes and effects the-workings of fate continue to remain a factor of inexplicable consequence. In the glitter of triumph there seems always the shadow of tragedy. Mr. Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, returned from Berchtesgaden, Godesburg and Munich with a guarantee for European peace in his pocket. From the consequences of a former peace treaty which ended a war, circumstances which threatened a greater war had developed and the aged Premi took the initiative to extract from it a formula which tore nations from each other's throats, Since then he has been alternately praised and condemned but there has been no war, and although the situation is extremely complicated it must be said for his intervention that there is no immediate likelihood of war. Now comes fate with its tragic hand. The Lockheed twin-engined aeroplane which flew him to Germany and, incidentally, provided him with his first aerial flight, crashed a few days after the momentous conferences had been concluded. If it had crashed during a flight to Germany the history of the world might have been tremendously changed for he alone possessed those calming and subduing influences which triumphed over war. A telegram from London now brings the sad news that Captain E. G. L. Robinson, the pilot who flew him on these historic flights, has been killed in an aeroplane crash near Bristol when the machine in which he was travelling as passenger burst into flames. It impossible to regard without a sense of profound regret this orifice of a humble instrument which contributed to Mr. Chamberlain's greatness. The air has not been completely conquered yet. Neither has the sea as far as absence of risk is concerned, but in such momentous periods it may not be the divine will but the human that the triumph be reflected and a remai bestowed more fitting than being burnt to death in an aeroplane.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.