WHERE ALL PROFIT BY GRAFT

Hokitika Guardian, 29 September 1923, Page 4

WHERE ALL PROFIT BY GRAFT

TI'FXTSI N, Aug. 1 I. China continues to be in as serious a condition as ever. h is impossible to see how any substantial improvement can be btouglu about until the country is able to produce a man of outstanding eharactei and capacity who will unite the various contending factions, put clown hopelessly corrupt and unprincipled leaders, and establish at Pekin or some other centre an honest and efficient administration for the protection ot lile and properly ami the use of public money on public objects. The country is in a las' worse predicament that it has yet been ; ii has virtually relapsed in the conditions which prevailed in feudal times, when it was hopelessly divided into small States, all constantly warring against one another.

It is ext iaordinary bow the whole ol China’s vast population appears to be saturated with graft known here as the ’* Squeeze System,’’ and it is practised ■iu such a wholesale scale that it is iHiestioiiable whether there are more than a negligible few who do not prolit by it.

< hiua ought to be one ol Ihe richest countries in the world. In the Province of Shansi alone she possesses sttltiri on coal to supply Ihe world for the next two hundred years. She has unlimited uaiural resources at present untouched and mineral wealth undeveloped. Her immediate need is money, but this will not be forthcoming until there are indisputable evidences that the mipolcncy and abuses which brought her to her present unenviable position no longer exist.