THE CIVIL WAR IN CHINA

The Ministry of the Navy announced on Tuesday the departure for Shanghai of two cruisers, the Jules-Ferry and the Colmar. We learned yesterday that contingents had landed and were protecting the French concessions in the city. This initiative is only natural in the face of news reporting fighting near Shanghai. We should not be alarmed. It is probable that foreigners will not be threatened: but France had to take the necessary measures to guarantee in any case the safety of its nationals. These measures will not be improvised; they will be the execution of a plan agreed several months ago between the French consul general in Shanghai and the naval authorities.

It is very difficult to find one's way in the confusion of bloody discord that, for years, has devastated the immense regions of the Middle Empire. Here, as far as one can claim to have some clarity in such matters, is how current events present themselves.

The civil war, which pitted South China against North China, ended in 1920 with the victory of the latter, whose leader, Ou-Pei-Fou, is the current master of Peking. But his authority, recognized in the capital, was far from being accepted everywhere. The military governors of the provinces, the toukiours, renewing what had happened in France at the time of Carolingian decadence, applied themselves to breaking the link between the central power and the regions subject to their authority. Unable to defeat them directly, Ou-Pei-Fou took up against them the tactics used by the weak descendants of Charlemagne, who united with certain vassals to fight their other rebellious vassals.

This is how he intervened in the quarrel between Chi-Hsieh-Yuan, governor of Kiang-Sou, and Lou-Yung-Hsiang, governor of Che-Kiang. He took the side of the former. It is the development of open hostilities between these two rivals that threatens to reach Shanghai.

Up to now, the struggle has not presented any xenophobic character, and it is unlikely that one of the belligerents will risk giving it this character, which would attract immediate and energetic repression.

According to all appearances, the hostilities will continue without taking a decisive turn. The hope, expressed by Chi-Hsieh-Yuan, of working towards the reconstitution of Chinese unity seems very difficult to realize. We must rather foresee the continuation of anarchy. China will continue to struggle in civil war and to provoke the covetousness of the two great rival peoples of America and Japan. This is not a guarantee of peace.

MR. T.