Evening star., 1938-06-12

geneT1ttSStnaO, IN 1Dhtch she dis
cnsSes the trends of thought
among the Chinese people and :.
their leaders In the throes of war.
By MAYLING SOONG CHANG.
mime. Chang Kai-shek.)
WUCHANG, China.
\ 4 ANY friends in America have asked
Nl future. re- ''' ''
Generally speaking, my views
are unpalatable-sometim unprintable.
It is bit difficult, too, to foresee possibil-
Ties through the murk caused by the wrath
and welter of war which is not war.
Wherever the Japanese have been, they
have marked our land with ruin. They
have left scars upon our earth, our hearts
and our minds-indelible scars-scars
which never can be healed or eradicated.
wonder If the Japanese people realize
that. They should begin to do so quickly,
II they ever hope to recover any semblance
OF prestige. or even standing, in China
or IN the world, for that matter. The
myriads Of ghosts they have made will take
lot OF laying-ghosts of men, women and
children; OF ancient cities, towns and vii
lagos, of workshops and factories, Of the
little shops-the places of handicraft of the
millions.
No Law to Punish Criminal.
You never saw such monstrous crini-
nality. Yet, in this year of grace 1885
at this alleged advanced period of civiliza-
tion-there is no law and no nation or ma
tions to check or punish the criminal; no
applicable international instrument of any
kind available. Think of it? This new style
Of "undeclared war;" permitting any kind
Of unlicensed inhumanity has superseded
all decencies. Only the metaphorical sword
is left. He who takes the sword will
perish by the sword will occur to the
minds Of many. Is there hope in that?
There Is some comfort, anyway. There are
many who pray that the metal of our blade
will stand the strain.
AS soon as the voice of the cannons die
down we must hurriedly face the task of
completely reconstructing cities, towns and
villages. We then have to rebuild the ma
ton. Bombs have not only shaken the
lives out Of people and buildings, they have
shaken the fabric Of national administra-
ton to such good purpose that, when re-
building does have a chance to begin, we
must seize it to follow plan that will pro-
duce national edifice that will ultimately
make us proud members Of q peaceful
family Of progressive democratic nations.
Destiny Is With Democracies.
To my mind, our destiny is with the
democracies. because our people are inher-
emily democratic in nature and spirit. If
we survive, we have the opportunity to be-
come a great organized democracy That
Is, Of course, If democracy itself survives.
So far. we in China have not had much
OF an opportunity to achieve any particular
modernized national greatness. We have
been having too much warfare since 1911 to
ceptably passable republic. Perhaps we
have been too content, in q way, to live
upon the musty reputation Of our ancient
glory, with-as caustic critics may well de-
scribe them-intramural intellects pretend
ing to competency in the handling of
modern systems and devices. have to say
"intramural" because we are too big
country to be called provincial-and, also,
we have q wall Whatever we are, we have
to admit that we found it difficult for many
years to march fast toward national sue
cess, though we really had girded up our
loins and had started, full of hope, when
our progress was stopped by the aggression
Of the japanese. ,@.N
have expressed the hope that we would
tread the democratic path, but I have to
mention that while the desire to adhere to
the democracies is pretty widespread and
substantial at the moment, there Is q school
of thought developing which is asking with
some impatience, but also with some per-
finance: What have the governments Of
the democracies done for us?"
No Tangible Assistance.
That is. from their point OF view, nat
ural and justified question. One has to ad-
NIT that the governments Of the democra-
cies have done nothing tangible or prac-
tical, not even to protect their own inter-
ests. They fear. OF course, that If they be-
come too articulate just at present they
may find themselves put in the position OF
having to defend their words with guns.
Naturally, they do not want war. but, II it
has to come, they want to be ready for it.
While that attitude Of mind is perfectly
understandable. large section Of our
thinking people cannot comprehend why
the democratic governments still fear 10
express themselves Ia practical terms to