Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-12-29

Marking government announces that
on January / it will issue an ofhcial
mandate declaring the abolition of
extraterritoriality in China. A special
code to cover Sino-foreign litigation is
to be promulgated. The reaction of
the United States, Great Britain and
France to the mandate will be of in
teresting note.
China has about 10000 miles of rail-
way, as against 100000 for the United
States, and she has only about 500
miles OF highway at all deserving the
name. She has about $40 900 900 acres
of cultivable soil uncultivated, about
the same as for the United States.
Were this uncultivated soil of China
to be cultivated without important
increase Of population, China should
not know famine. Even without in
crease Of the cultivated area, If she had
an adequate transportation system,
China should not, with her present
population, know famine. The ma
tional wealth per capita of China is
said to be 500, as against $3.50 for
Japan. The total national debt of
China is about $3.50, 00O, O00-really a
bagatelle.
81 the President signed the bill pro-
viding for promotion Of Comdr. Byrd
to the rank Of rear admiral on the
retired list of the Navy. The admiral
Is Al years of age.
After eight years of elaboration on
the matter the Interstate Commerce
Commission has completed and re-
ported a plan for consolidation of the
country'S railways into 81 systems in
Ny icn n@ fN 81 NNNA
able operation and preservation of COM
petition" Congressional action would
seem to be required to enforce the plan
SCIENCE.-The eighty-sixth annual
meeting of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science opened
in Des Mo.nes on Friday, the 9th,
and will close on January 2. The re-
firing president was Henry Fairfield
Osborn, the great biologist and presi-
dent of the American Museum of Nat
ural History of New York. The new
president is DR.. Robert A. Millikan,
the great physicist, director of the
Norman Bridge Physical Laboratory of
the California Institute of Technology
at Pasadena.
Industrial and Engineering Chemistry,
the journal of the American Chemical
Society, discusses the advances made
by chemistry in the year Just ending.
The most important appear to be the
following:
The discovery that oxygen and n.y.
drogen are mixtures of iSotopes; the
isolation by Treat B. johnson and r.
T. Anderson Of Yale University Of a
toxic sugar produced by the tubercle
bacillus; the "synthesis," by Hans
Fischer of Munich, "of the desperation
ferment haeminone of the most i'm
portant contributions ever made to bio
chemistry" the establishment of the
suitability of ethyocaine borate for local
anaesthesia, and the invention. as GER
titled by our Bureau of Standards, Of
a self-extinguishing cigarette and a
"fireproof match" (rather important in
view Of the fact that the annual fire
loss in this country caused by matches
and flag ends Of cigarettes is estimated
at $4,000 000). These developments
are quite as important as the elegant
activities of Wall Street, tariff legis-
rules.
NOTES.-The Five-power Naval Con-
terence Will open IN London on January
1t is hoped against hope" that the
Polish cabinet crisis Is over.
Prof. Casimir Bartel who was premier
from 1925 TO April, 1929, has been in
vited to form q cabinet. He is reputed
q devoted henchman Of Marshal Pill
sudski.
Dissolution Of the Japanese House Of
Representatives seems to impend. The
government (Which took once In July
Of this year, is a minority one, as APP