7 MAY 1927, Page 2

The Shanghai correspondent of the Times says that reports from

Hankow indicate -a _change of front by the Communists, who now exhibit almost servile eagerness to conciliate foreigners. Anti-foreign posters are being torn down and their places are taken by placards with such legends as " Foreigners resume business." The city is said to be falling into disrepair, and the streets are filthy. • There is little money and little food, and Mr .Chen influence is said- to have vanished.. It looks as though the Chinese factions will exhaust themselves . either by their prolonged civil war or. by. their suicidal anti-foreiga policy, -which deprives them of the means of living. if this be so, there will be a muck more favourable oppor- tunity: for :a-useftd settlement in a-few .weeks than -there is now. Single-handed action by any-Power might have the disastrous effects of making it finally for the Powers to come together and of galvanizing into life again any Communist resistance that is. capable °I being revived. impossible