There is something characteristically insolent in Japan's reporte protest against
the suggestion that a Chinese envoy to the Vatican should be appointed. Japan herself recently despatched such an envoy, for transparently political reasons. The number of Japan Roman Catholics is hard to ascertain, but it is known to be in- considerable—probably not much over zoo,000. In China there are something like three million Catholics ; there have been Catholics there for more than three centuries. In both cases the motive for representation at the Vatican appears to be primarily other than religious—which is why this particular moment is chosen for the demarche—but if Japan, then with very much more reason China. I am told, by the way, that in the Chinese volume which corresponds to our Who's Who, one-sixth of the persons included are Christians
and fully half were educated at Christian universities or colleges. * * * *
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