Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-02-07

untll III Is overturned, for China In
dealings with foreign powers. and re.
adjustment conferences may be re
| Sumed That will not be futile
As fast and as far As there Is a rep.
resentative, reasonably responsible
government I'm China. whether chosen
by ballots or bullets. with power to
carry out its treaty agreements, ia
protect life and to administer approx
mate Justice, just so fast and SO
far will the European nations sur.
render their privileges and cOnces.
sions, including protection of the lives
and property of their nationals, to that
Chinese government; but no faster.
America and Chinese Readjustment.
In these international conferences,
so important to the peace and welfare
Of the whole world, America is in posi-
! ton to play wisely helpful role All
thoughtful Chinese appreciate the sym
pathetic good will of the United States,
concretely expressed in return of the
| surplus of Boxer indemnity. In our
| "open-door' policy, in the disarmament
| conference at Washington and in every
| other case without exception where our
! friendliness and spirit of fair play for
China have been tested. And on the
| other hand our relations with our
| World War associates, and especially
| WIN ITtdl bFllstll, winch IN TINS mat
ter bears the brunt of Asiatic attack,
.are such as to give weight to our sug-
Gestions of radical revision in the d.
rection of softening on the lines of
! justice of the old policies and prac-
tees of the Occident in dealing with
| Oriental peoples.
We Washngtonians have in the
| course of years come into intimate
touch with many of the finest type of
! cultivated Chinese, of brains. of moral
stamina, of high ideals. They typify
a constantly increasing group, which.
| if intruSted with the control and up
| building of China, would gain world
respect and regard for the ancient ma
ton. and would bring deserved better
! ments of conditions of life to millions
| of its people. But chaotic China
| brushes this group between the upper
and lower millstones of lack of appre-
| citation by massed millions at the bot
| tom, who must work from morning
! TO night TO avoid starvation. and who
| have no time for patriotic ideals: and
a corresponding lack of appreciation
! by the war lords, the modern feudal
| baronS. big and little, many eXbanditS,
| with their mercenary armies. in whom
| avarice and ambition destroy patriot
| ism. The supreme Chinese war lord
| will use members of the highly Guilt
| waited group as a superior order of
| servants as long as they promote his
personal ambition and adorn his die.
| tatorship. and will throw them aside
! like a sucked orange when they cease
| TO be useful, or threaten opposition 10
| the war lords selfish ambition. Or
when their particular war lord is
| ouSted from power by another, they
suffer. perhaps in exile, the fate of
| the eX-dictator to whom they have
been appended.
Future of New China.
Ii in the high and rising tide of
Chinese nationalism the war lords
| can be fractionally cleansed of avarice
and imbued with patriotism, as Sug-
gested as possible by Tong Shaggy; or
if the war lords, revealed as beyond
| redemption. shall kill one another off
or exile one another to Russia or
Japan; and If the bands of mercenary
soldiers, aggregating more than a
| million, can in part be merged into a
| loyal national army and in part be
| financed as self-supporting colonists
| on the comparatively undeveloped
| lands of northwest China; and If con-
troll of the government can thus be
taken from the military and transfer
red to the patriotic. thinking class,
now inspired by a strong spirit of
| national consciousness, the whole
| world will, with China. vastly benefit.
All of the powers will wisely con-
| tribute to this solution of the Chinese
problem. The powers, which have
| fought to dismember North China
and those which in the past have
contended in the profitable and
| humiliating exploitation of China.
provoking deep resentments. should
y,,t@ s., ~;
| nese good will. not only by sympa-
thetic words. but by acts of concrete
| helpfulness.
The future should salve the wounds
of the past. The powers which have
| fettered China should loosen the
cramping bonds. Unified China should
develop into its strength, not as the
Ishmael among nations whose hostile
| hand threatens the world, but as a
welcome addition to the family of
| modern great nations, whose friend
ship the rest of the world desires and
values.
The alternative course of treatment
| does not promise desirable results.
The spirit of China, Land of Philo-
| sophie Calm, is not warlike. All that
| the farming coolies, the bulk of the
population, ask is to be let alone to
wiring a bare subsistence from the soil
| by the hardest Of hard labor When
conscripted or kidnapped to serve as
soldiers in the battles of the petty
| war-lords suicides among them to es-
| cape this semi-slavery are not un-
| known.
Making China Militant.
But all existing conditions tend to
make the Chinese militant. China is
| the battlefield of under-the-surface
war between Russia and Japan for
supremacy in Asia; between Great
Britain and Japan for trade su-
premacy; between China and Great
Britain representing all the great