The Reconstruction of China The - Japanese criticisms of Dr. Rajchman, the
Director of the League of Nations Health Section, who has been lent as technical adviser to the Chinese Government, will serve only to attract attention to the very able report which Dr. Rajchman has just presented to the League of Nations Council on economic and other con- ditions in China. The efforts of that great country to organize itself and achieve its unity are viewed with sympathy everywhere except perhaps in Japan, and slow and difficult though the process is, there arc passages in Dr. Rajchman's report which in some directions at least provide ground for confidence. The National Economic Council which the Chinese Government; has formed has conducted a survey which may form a basis for that process of planning -hoW so fashionable every- where, and indispensable in an undeveloped country like China. A generation ago the * great need would have been for railways. Today it is cheaper and-more practicable to begin with motor roads, and considerable -progress in that field is, in fact, being achieved. Communications are necessary in China, not merely for trade, but for the pacification of the country, and there is evidence that the considered policy of the Nanking Government of methodically extending its influence in the Yangtze Valley and in other directions is today bearing fruit. It is of the best omen that China should have applied, As Japan has done, to the League of Nations for the disinterested assistance which the League is so well qualified to furnish, and it would be disastrous if the Council allowed itself to be in the least degree intimidated by the quite unjustified complaints put forward; and only half withdrawn, by Japan.
Previous page
