THE situation in China is still extremely difficult to understand. Marshal Feng, who is really a Christian despite the inverted commas of the daily newspapers, and who recently occupied Tientsin, has announced his intention of retiring from public life and living abroad. It is difficult to estimate Marshal Feng. On the one hand, we are assured that he is a Bolshevist; on the other hand, we learn from the Cheeloo Times, the quarterly bulletin issued by the Shantung Christian University, that he has been employing his troops in building roads and bridges, sinking wells, constructing canals, and other works of public utility. He is described, indeed, as a sincere patriot, whose antagonism to Great Britain has been caused by his belief that this country is unwilling to acknowledge China’s position as a sovereign power. However, whatever were his ideals and ambitions, it would seem that Marshal Feng’s brief period of power has come to an end. And what next? We fear that China is destined to remain for some time longer the victim of one military adventurer after another, and it is one of the ironies of the modern world that the most pacificist of all peoples should be compelled into the ranks of one or another army of mercenaries by economic stress. Military pay is the Chinese unemployment dole.

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