* . * The arrival of Mr. T. V. Soong,
the Chinese Finance Minister, in this country next week may be an event of real importance. Mr. Soong, who is the backbone of the Nanking Government, combines with great financial and political ability a consistently progressive outlook, qualified by a very necessary sense of realities. Both on political and commercial grounds it will be a profound misfortune if the opportunities offered by personal con- tacti between Mr. Soong and British Ministers are not exploited to the full. Mr. Soong, like all his family, is .a Christian, and that in much more than name. The family as a whole has a remarkable record. Mr. Soong's father, who was an ordinary sailor, became converted in the course of a voyage to America.. He subsequently set up a printing-press at which the Bible was produced in Chinese, built a church and became one of the founders. of the Y.M.C.A. in China. Of Mr. Soong's three strikingly beautiful sisters, one married. Dr. Sun Yat-sen, also a Christian ; another General Chiang Kai-chek, who accepted Christianity in 1931 ; and the third Dr. H. H. Kung, formerly Minister of Industry, who visited this country a few weeks ago on a special mission. He, too, is a Christian. Add to that the fact that Dr. C. T. Wang, the late Foreign Minister, who will inevitably return sooner or later to active political life, was a leading Y.M.C.A. worker, and it will be seen .how remarkable a part Chinese Christians have played in the government of their country of recent years. Even economists must eat, but it is surely not essential for them to eat quite as frequently (or as excessively) as members of the Economic Conference seem likely to do in their first few days here. The junketing with which these affairs are invariably attended, in fact, creates a thoroughly bad impression. When the date of the Con- ference was fixed it was at once pointed out with satisfac- tion that the London season would then be at its height. Could incongruity go further ? All this is one of the penalties of holding conferences away from Geneva. In the League city it is no one's business to give big dinners. Consequently, they are seldom given; and everyone is the better for it. But the moment a conference is called somewhere else the Government of the country con- cerned, and various public bodies in it, feel it imperative to beat all previous records in the matter of lavish enter- tainment. Receptions, where you can make what con- tacts you like, and as many, are a different matter from dinners, where you can only talk to the persons next you-
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