Foreign News: Everybody Pleased

The great Swing Around North China of intense little Dictator Chiang Kai-shek and his sleek little Wellesley-graduate wife last autumn was admittedly almost as epochal as if in 1932 President Hoover had toured in triumph the Solid South of the U. S. On such a trip, however, Mr. Hoover's doings and sayings would have been minutely covered by the world Press whereas the Chinese generalissimo on his triumphant tour was practically neglected by newshawks. Last week details were ably filled in for U. S. readers by Oriental Affairs, the super-British Shanghai monthly published by H. G. W. Woodhead, C. B. E. Excerpts from the monocle-eye-view supplied Oriental Affairs by its leisurely Tientsin Correspondent W. V. Pennell:

"Much has been said of the effects of loss of confidence in connection with the great Depression in the West. Much the same is true of North China. . . . Even the sturdy peasant mentality, shaken by long exposure to misery, has been shattered by the events of the past two or three years, and especially by the [Japanese] advance on Peiping last year. The Chinese more than feared the worst. . . . Laden and dispirited atmosphere has prevailed. . . ."

Effect. "The visit of the Generalissimo and his wife has had an almost electrical effect. Greatest of all in its moral influence was the 'invasion' of Peiping. It says volumes for the feeling that obtained when I state that his visit to Peiping was in the nature of an incredible surprise. The disposition was to regard it in much the same child-like wonder with which good little boys in Sunday School hearken to the wondrous tale of Daniel in the lions' den!

"For the first time since the National Government was inaugurated, he [Chiang, a Southerner] has made the people in the North realize that the Government refers to them. He has brought the Government nearer than it has ever been to the North and the North nearer to the Government than it has ever been since Nanking became the Capital" (TIME, May 2, 1927).

Opium. "The tour effected a great deal more than a mere change of atmosphere. There were practical gains. . . . [Previously Generalissimo Chiang's puritanical] 'New Life' Movement was, to put it bluntly, regarded with some suspicion as is usual in the North which asks 'Can any good come out of the South?' . . . All this suspicion has been swept aside now.

"This movement is going to exercise an extraordinary influence. . . . The Generalissimo's assaults on the 'Four Curses' [drugs, prostitutes, drink and gambling] caused something of a sensation. . . . The Generalissimo's furious attack on the opium and drug traffic at a mass meeting with General Yen [opium profiteer but otherwise "Model Governor" of Shansi Province] in the chair, was decidedly piquant. ... In Peiping . . . no further, registration of waitresses [as prostitutes] will be allowed. Men and women are forbidden to walk arm in arm in public places. The 'queer dress' ban is to be applied to actresses as well as other women. ..."