Current Literature
CHINA AND THE POWERS. By H. K. Norton. (G. Allen and Unwin. 15s.)—Mr. Norton, a well-known American authority on Chinese affairs, gives a lucid and temperate account of the situation in the Far East in this interesting book. He reminds us that it was the United States that first secured extra-territorial rights for its citizens in China eighty years ago ; other Western nations enjoy the same privilege by virtue of the most-favoured-nation clause in their treaties. Mr. Norton does full justice to the sympathetic -attitude of Great Britain and Japan towards China in her -troubles. He believes that China has no real complaint to .make against the foreign treaties, which, he holds, cannot be modified until China has a decent administration instead of a pack of military adventurers who live by plunder. China might, he thinks, benefit for the time by the rise of a strong man, but he does not attach undue importance to any of the generals now prominent ; indeed, since he wrote, Chiang Kai-shek has passed from the stage. Chinese hostility to foreigners, in Mr. Norton's view, prevents the Powers from `doing anything helpful for the present. They must await 'China's return to a better mind.
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