CHINA: Strawn Speaks

Before the Chicago Association of Commerce, Silas Hardy Strawn, for more than a year able U. S. representative at Peking on the abortive Chinese Customs and Extraterritoriality Conferences (TIME, Aug. 31, Nov. 2, 1925, et seq.) sketched last week the condition of China as he left it a month ago (TIME, Oct. 4). Mr. Strawn, puissant Chicago lawyer, Chairman of the Board of Montgomery Ward & Co., Director of the Wahl (“Eversharp Pencil”) Co., said:

“There is at present no stable government in China. The area of China is a million square miles greater than that of the United States. China is larger than the United States, Mexico and Central America combined. It is larger than all Europe. More than four hundred million, or one-fourth of the people of the earth, live in China. . . .

“I may mention that since the attempt to establish a republic 14 years ago there have been 8 presidents or chief executives, 42 cabinets with a continuously changing membership, and 25 ministers of justice. The last president, Tsao Kun, was locked up in Peking from December, 1924, to April, 1926, because it was said he bought his office—yet no formal charge was ever made against him and he was never brought to trial. He was released when the armies of Wu Pei-fu and Chang Tso-lin entered Peking on Apr. 10, 1926. On that day the chief executive, Tuan Chi-jui, fled from the presidential mansion to the foreign legation quarter in Peking and thence to a foreign concession in Tientsin, where he now resides. . . .

“The American Legation at Peking last summer arranged to buy its winter supply of coal from a mine about 20 miles from Peking. The railroad was under the control of Wu Pei-fu, the then dominant war lord. His underlings demanded a ‘squeeze’ of $2 per ton for the use of cars to move the coal.

“In addition the Legation must pay Wu $25 per car, and the village where this general was quartered demanded $1.80 per car additional ‘squeeze.’

“This episode was more aggravating when it is known that the cars and locomotives to move the coal had been furnished to the Chinese Government by American builders and have not yet been paid for, the debt being several years in default. The unfortunate vendors have no lien on the equipment, and by reason of military domination, could not enforce it if they had.

“When I left China I was reliably informed that Wu Pei-fu [since defeated and eclipsed] was collecting from the Peking-Hankow Railroad $1,000,000 per month. The total earnings of the road are $1,500,000 and the payroll $650,000 per month. It is obvious the employes cannot be paid—and they had not been for several months. Another dominant War Lord, Chang Tso-lin, is receiving the revenue of the Peking-Mukden Railroad.

“No attention is paid to maintenance of way or equipment. The result, therefore, seems inevitable —unless conditions soon change, it will not be long before the railroads of China must cease operation and the unfortunate people will be compelled to go back to the wheelbarrow or pack their freight upon their backs. Most of the camels, donkeys and cattle of the patient, industrious farmers have already been taken by the soldiers. . . . Minor officials, including the police guarding the city of Peking, remain unpaid. The only departments of the government that are being capably and economically operated, and in an orderly and businesslike manner, are the postoffice, the maritime customs, and the salt administration, which are under the control of foreign employes…. I am expected to make some observations about China’s future. He who could prescribe a panacea for the cure of all the ills of China would be the greatest pathologist the world has seen. No one seems able to write a prescription. . . .”