A LETTER FROM PEKING. [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—In a country strewn with the debris of broken contracts (not so much because of broken faith as because of broken power on the part of the contractors) the value of the Hankow document can only be judged by results. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald's suggestion in a speech which has reached us in the last batch of London papers, that the signing of the agreement could serve as a safe substitute for the despatch of troops to Shanghai, implies an assumption for which there is no warrant in the facts of the situation. It seems certain, however, that in signing the agreement Mr. Chen did not flout the Bolshevist clement in his party,- but that the latter decided as a matter of policy to allow the negotiations to go through. Their policy is plausibly explained by those in touch with the Kuomintang as being due to their diminished power to control over the Southern party and to their fear lest too great intran- sigeance should bring the moderates, including Chian Kaishek, the Southern Commander-in-Chief, to revolt against their influence. Whatever the explanation, the agreement is a step -in advance, and Mr. O'Malley is to be congratulated on bring- ing it about.
The general _strike of the Shanghai labour unions was meant as an item in an attack on Shanghai by the Southern forces, the equivalent of exploding a mine under the enemy's position. It was discouraged by the wholesale executions of leading agitators. These executions are an extremely grim feature of the situation, although as a foreigner living in China, one can only say that the all too common spectacle of con- demned men being led about the streets, placarded with their crimes and preceded by a military band on their way to public execution is a constant reminder of the difference in standards between East and West. Not unreasonable fears are expressed that if and when Shanghai falls to the Southerners there will be awful retribution.
In the North, Chang Tso-lin's indignation with the foreign Powers for withholding material support has apparently blown over if one may judge from the fact that the Marshal, accompanied by his son, " The Young General," and Yang Yu-ting, who fills more or less the position of a Grand Vizier, have been figuring frequently at social entertainments in the principal foreign Legations. On such occasions the Marshal runs no risks, but insists on quartering the premises with his personal retainers whose gowns bulge significantly at the waist. Outside the entrance his famous armoured motor-car, fitted with a swivel machine gun alongside the driver's seat, and a small fleet of motor-cycles and side-ears similarly equipped, wait to rush him honk after the entertainment. In person a demure, quiet-eyed man of slight build and stature and a markedly gentle manner, he himself has little of the look of a war-lord. His mild exterior hides the iron determination which has raised him from a leader of outlaws to the position he now holds. Meanwhile a growing craze for gambling, which keeps him often twelve hours on end at the ma-chang table to the exclusion of all business, is raising doubts as to how much longer he will retain the Northern leadership.
An essential fact to realize in connexion with the security of foreigners is that : the China of to-day is militarized to a (legree which is almost unknown in any other country. The soldiers are counted by millions and the military officers, having relegated the civil authority to the background wher- ever it irks them in the least, are the real masters of the country. In the North at least they have taken the law almost completely into their own hands, and civil officials act and speak simply as they are told to. The man with the gun is lord of the situation, and no one is allowed to forget it. It is unnecessary to enlarge on a subject which has been fully dealt with in the recent published report of the Extra-terri- toriality Commission, but this state of affairs must be con- stantly borne in mind in weighing the position in China. The submergence of civil authority is no doubt less pronounced in the South, but even there it will be long _before the military commander with an armed force at his back will voluntarily obey the civil authorities when it does not suit his purpose.—
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