The, news about China doled out to the man in the street by our daily and weekly newspapers, even the best, is but scanty, and all of the same monotonous type. Civil wars, and rumours of civil wars, make up the bulk of it. The struggle of one Tu-chun against another, the march of Southerners against Northerners, captures of cities, surrenders, betrayals, flights of leaders, and re-appearances of defeated generals, and what seem to him aimless expeditions and useless fighting fill up the picture of the present state of the Middle Kingdom. It is quite incomprehensible to the ordinary Englishman; and those who have lived in the Far East and have had some dealings with the Chinese are often asked by their friends what is the meaning of it, and how it is all going to end. If wary, they will remember the wise saying ‘Never prophesy unless you know,’ for he would indeed be a rash person who professed to foresee with any certainty the final outcome of the present turmoil in that distant land. One thing is to be remembered, that the Chinese have a long history, that they have passed through many periods of worse disorder than the present, but that the ship of state has righted herself, and the country settled down again to the cultivation of the soil and the other arts of peace. There is no reason to suspect they will not eventually do so once more—if left to themselves.

In an article in The Morning Post (Nov. 6, 1926) it was stated that ‘the interested Foreign Powers in China were agreed upon one point, which is that there shall be no joint intervention in the internal affairs of that distracted country.’