Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-07-16
The Smoldering East.

The dogs of war have not yet broken
loose in the Far East, but within an
other twenty-four hours, when Soviet
Russia's three-day ultimatum to China
will have expired, events should march
fast to a decision. No one who knows
Oriental diplomacy, especially its pas
sion and capacity to save face" can
doubt that the 72-hour interval has
been feverishly employed by both sides
in the hope Of composing bloodlessly
the railway dispute that gave rise to
the ruction between Moscow and Nam
king.
Meantime, it would be as premature
to dismiss all possibility of a Russo
Chinese war in Manchuria as it would
be to foreshadow its inevitability. All
that the remote world outside can do
amid a situation which already gives
sign of being heavily censored Is to
canvass alike the factors that make,
on the one hand, for peace and, on the
other, nourish the prospect Of hostii-
ties.
Here in Washington, on the very
threshold of the formalities which will
make the Kellogg pact the law of the
world, we naturally think of the multi
lateral treatys efficacy in the Asian
crisis. Both Soviet Russia and Nation
alist China have adhered to the Cen
eral Pact for Remuneration of War.
Their signatures commit them to es-
chew force as IAN instrument of ma
tional policy"
There is the League of Nations, OF
which China is member and In
which Russia, on occasion at least Qike
America), is a cooperating power. The
Leagues machinery can be invoked Tor
peace preserving purposes, even II all
of the quarreling states are not League
members, such as Russia in the present
instance. Japan, with burning interest
in the menacing state Of affairs In
Manchuria, happens to hold at the mo-
ment the presidency Of the League
Council, in the person Of M. Adachi,
.Japanese Ambassador to France. Ge-
neva could move, with full consistency,
in the Russian Chinese imbroglio If 1t
pleased to do so.
There is yet another peace-compel-
ling factor. common to both would-be
belligerents. Russia is suffering from
food shortage in Russia. Dispatches
today stress it as a condition which
is giving the Soviet military authorities
serious pause. Russian armies could not
fight very long on half rations. Chma's
famine remains chronic in many prov
inces. The Marking authorities would
think twice and thrice before sending
their legions into battle against Russia
with the food plight as desperate as
it is among immense sections OF the
civilian population.
Yet, despite all these peace imponder-
ables, there is fundamental basis for
a Russo Chinese clash and a fight
to a finish. Should it break out In
this fifteenth anniversary Summer OF
-Turope's Armageddon, the Chinese East
crn Railway affair would be the pre-
text, but not the cause, any more IMAM
Sarajevo was the cause that produced
the World War. Farther-reaching mo-
lives are at work in Eastern Asia. They
are pathological and fundamental.
They derive from deeply embedded roots.
One finds It's source in the new Chinas
determined program to be indisputable
master in its own vast territorial house,
particularly including Manchuria. The
other root traces to the plans OF the
new Russia-imperialized Soviet Russia
to follow in the footsteps of the
Czarist regime it once affected to de-
spise, and be an "Asiatic power"
This railway row may be settled, but
the ingredients of Russo-Chinese war
will be .perpetuated.