China and the Powers.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18409, 16 June 1925, Page 8

China and the Powers.

If it is true lhat the Chinese rioters arc now definitely Anglo-phobe, the explanation must be that given in a Peking cable—that the Government is yielding to the Bolsheviks. It is dear enough that Moscow is as busy in Peking as it knows how to be, and that what inflammatory literature will not do gold will usually achieve while it. lasts. The effect the Bolshevik missionaries have had on the masses does not appear to have been very great, and the thought of a Bolshevik revolution could be dismissed for ever, if a necessary preliminary were the conversion of the Chinese people to the gospel of Marx. But the literateilliterate young men of the schools and colleges' are not quite the same kind of material. It seems certain that those directing the present disorders have read as much revolutionary nonsense as Moscow has thought it wise to givi? them, and if so it is not difficult to account for their Anglo-phobia. But as we pointed out last week. China has drifted into a position in which the adventurer and the mischief-maker can do almost anything but establish a strong central Government and restore the national finances. In the days of the Emperor there was a semblance at least of cohesion and national unity, and to the extent to which this unity was real it was a check on the plun-< dering war-lords. To-day there is no check on a plunderer with an army but another plunderer with a bigger army, with tho result that the Central Government is dependent on military adventurers who desert it when desertion seems profitable. A glance at the map suggests also that Peking is too remote for effective control, if indeed it is possible for China ever again to be controlled as a unit from any centre. The present indications are that the country is breaking up into a number of. republics or principalities which, though they may be federated, will not again cohere into a unitary State. The "partition of China" from the outside is no more now than a historical forioaty, but it is difficult to

see what can prevent partition from the inside but the rise of a modern Tamerlane. And now that disintegration has begun the position of the "Western Powers ha 3 become extremely delicate and difficult. If they "intervene" they will be charged with attempting to extort rights and privileges at least, and probably with grabbing at more territory; if they stand idly looking on they may see the country brought to ruin and everything that has been dono to bring Europe and Asia together undone for perhaps a century. But if they are not prepared to look on helplessly what is it that the Powers can do? They can do little without co-operation, and tho obstacle to co-operation is something more now than the traditional timidity, or jealousy, or suspicion of America. Britain, which has most at stake, is no longer the Britain of Boxer days, or of tho days oven of the Nine Power Treaty. Britain today means Canada and South Africa and Australia and New Zealand as well a.s the Homeland, and it is not at nil certain that all these separate States would speak with one voice if it were proposed to hold China up until she could walk comfortably unaided. It will be a surprise if the Powers lake a more active part in restoring "China than America is taking in restoring Europe.