The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. MONDAY, MARCH 28, 1927. FRENZY IN CHINA

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 5, 28 March 1927, Page 6

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. MONDAY, MARCH 28, 1927. FRENZY IN CHINA

ANYONE who has heard a Cantonese market gardener protest against the looting of his cabbage patch will have no difficulty in visualising the frenzy of the armed Chinese mobs around the foreign settlements in the areas where violence takes the place of government. It means the difference between the anger of one man and the fury of a multitude. Though conditions in the frenzied zone are bad and threatening to become worse instead of better, they are, at the moment, happily much less terrible than some of the too impulsive “war correspondents” imagined. The latest reports flatly contradict their former tales of massacre and outrage. Indeed, a note of optimism is to be found in the official report on the situation. There has been a little improvement both at Shanghai, where Labour is more composed than it has been for a long time, and at Nanking whence all the remaining foreign residents were withdrawn without loss of life. These are the only appreciable features in a wide canvas of strife and confusion. Alone they are scarcely sufficient to justify the pious resolution of New York churchmen that “Christianity backed by guns will never be effective.” Fortunately, the American authorities have taken a clearer view of a menacing situation and have decided to exercise national responsibility in co-operating with Great Britain to an increased extent. In due time the presence of nine or ten thousand American marines, together with the protective fdrces of other Christian Powers, will emphasise the moral effect and value of an armed Christianity. There would have been weeping in New York to-day had the British Government followed the_ lead of the Pacifists. From a political point of view it was perhaps unfortunate that Great Britain, which alone had a constructive policy of sympathy with the genuine cause of Chinese Nationalism, should have been the first to despatch armed force to China, but, if the Government been appalling. In spite of factions opposition at Home and guns, the record of massacre among foreign residents would have been apppllngi. In spite of factious opposition at Home and innumerable obstacles abroad, including the aloofness of other Powers a few months ago, the British Government did the right thing at the right time, and again proved that its foreign policy is as sound as it is humane. Though Mr. Ramsay MacDonald has since somersaulted on the question of British action in China, his first declaration on the subject might well be the policy of the whole nation. When the Labour leader denounced the violence of the Hankow mob he declared that: “If a Government uses a crowd like the Hankow crowd for its own purposes it must not be mealy-mouthed as to the consequences.” The same Canton Government has similarly used the Shanghai crowd and the Nanking mob, and still must not be mealy-mouthed as to the consequences which may yet have -to be made very severe.