Doubt still clouds the situation in China. It is impos-
sible to say what the Nanking Government will try to do in the North. Chang Tso-lin, to the rumours of whose death owing to the bombing of his train on June 4th we have alluded in these notes and in verse, has now been `` officially " reported dead. If Nanking is cautious the powers there will allow to stand all or most of the arrange- ments made for the future of Manchuria by those who have kept Chang's death a secret while they settled according to their own hopes and bargaining powers the devolution of his- authority. If Nanking is over-bold or grasping of power north of Peking, they will have to reckon with Japan, who has given fair warning. No one can say to what Japan's intervention might lead either in China or in international relations, but if she inter- venes upon reasonably certain assurance that in no other way can the peace be kept in Manchuria we shall not blame her. Disturbing news came last week of a Chinese threat to loot Tangshan, a centre of coal-mining on the Mukden railway west of Peking. Large- numbers of British and Belgians (no women and children) were there quite unprotected since the United States railway guard was withdrawn. • A battalion of British troops has been sent there.
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