CHINA AND THE POWERS
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR, —Your correspondent, "M," who writes of the Peking Tariff Conference, is striking a very badly needed note for England's welfare, and, being a man interested very largely in business, he deserves attention.
The Old Guard, as young China , calls the foreigners, still think the China of 1925 is the same as that of 1920. They- fail to believe that the new national spirit has come to stay, and that you can't shoot a coolie nowadays, "because he is part of a nation." In fighting for her right to control her own tariffs, China does not expect to increase her revenues largely, badly as she needs them. It is her sovereign rights that she really wants. And, also, what she wants Englishmen to give her (which they don't give her) is respect. Siam, tied up by just such unfair treaties, has just acquired a revision of them from all the nations, in spite of the opposition of the English potentiary in Bangkok. The British Government saw the injustice of • trying to keep a nation down, and followed the example of France. It was the disinterested advocacy of an independent American friend which succeeded in obtaining this most just—and, to us English, -honourable—advance in our relationships. The Professor of Chinese at Cambridge Univer- sity is responsible for a statement in the public prints that Marshal Feng Yu-hsiang is " the greatest blackguard that has appeared on the stage in China." Such statements at the present time do a great deal more harm than many battleships do good.
I have just been talking with Bishop Root, twenty-five years in China and famous all over the world for his breadth of mind and constructive work. He has known Feng (the " Christian General ") for years and has absolute confidence in him. Dr. Houghton, Principal of the wonderful Rockefeller Institute at Peking, also knows him intimately and has the same opinion of him.
C. T. Wong, who will very likely be the next President of China, says exactly the same of Feng ; and you can take it, Marshal Feng is no more a Bolshevist than the Editor of th e Spectator. He is a patriotic zealot, possibly deeply religious, but tremendously practical. I visited him myself in Mongolia, and I only wish that, personally, I commanded a tithe of his character and qualities. He does get his ammunition from Urga, and it does travel over the Siberian railway. As he can't get it anywhere else, it seems to me to show his wisdom, if there is any wisdom in ammunition. I believe him to be a truly great man. Much that he is reported to have said is false, He is not any more anti-English than he is anti-Fiji. He will work with anyone who will respect China and give her a fair deal. He is out for getting for China what England would want China to give her if positions were reversed ; and who should blame him ? He hates fighting, and he won't make war unless it is forced upon him. He has an army of the Cromwell type, and I have never seen any such provision made anywhere for the private soldiers and recruits, to try to rai se them to self-respecting independence, as Isaw at Kalgani It seems to me England would be well advised to follow a policy'of intelligent liberalism. The English are having a hard time compared with the Americans now, and the willingness of America to grant fiscal independence is both right and wise, and to America's best interests.
The English Boxi-walla can hold his own for all time any. where, and he only stands to lose by unfair and selfish advan- tages over a nation that is finding itself.—I am, Sir, &c., WILFRED T. GRENFELL, M.D., F.R.C.S. 53 lliontnouth Street, Brookhne, Mass.
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