BRITISH POLICY

An extraordinarily far-sighted and generous policy toward China on the part of Great Britain has been announced by Sir Austen Chamberlain. Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and may be regarded as a decided step forward in the attitude of the Western world toward the East England has gone more than half-way in its effort to reach a settlement with China, considering not the inconvenience of the moment, but relations with China for the next hundred years." All the points stated by China have been accepted, extra-territoriality, the tariff and the matter of the concessions. Such a degree of conciliatory policy seems large, even for Great Britain.

If Great Britain can afford to be generous and to overlook actions that would probably have precipitated armed conflict in the days of the Opium Wars, it might be possible for the United States to act with equal grace in Mexico and Nicaragua. The situations are admittedly different, yet trade welfare and the protection of nationals and their property has to be considered by Great Britain in China as well as by the United States in Central America. But it is believed in England that the former methods were not as helpful as more generous ones. There seems to be a reasonable hope that a more dependable alliance will spring from concllintion in future. The principle is an old one, too infrequently applied. But if England can afford to apply it, America will probably not go far wrong in following out the same general line of policy.