On the same day Mr. Austen Chamberlain made a statement
on. China. He was firm and reasonable, though not cheerful. He considered that the Labour Party took a very superficial view in attributing the trouble to factory conditions in mills owned by foreigners. Civil war and anarchy were much. deeper causes of trouble and had further nullified in part the good inten- tions of the Washington Conference. We agree, as we have already said, that a strike in a Japanese mill at Shanghai' is no sufficient cause for all that is going on through China, and if foreign mill-owners refused to employ chil- dren. (we are told they try. to make this elementary improvement) that would enrage Chinese parents and the children would be whipped off to infinitely worse con- ditions in Chinese mills a few miles away. Mr. Chamber- lain defended the British authorities against grossly unjust charges of using unnecessary force and went on to say that he hoped there would be no delay in calling an International Conference on the whole matter,
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