Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/142



We have mentioned not only the Ministry of Finance but the Ministry of Communications. corrupt good manners. The extraordinary nature of the railway tangle to-day is due both to the false principles on which the development of Chinese railways has been conducted in the past, and to the present bankruptcy and lack of authority of the Central Government, which is forced to pawn every liquid asset—particularly its communications—to obtain hard cash; and is likewise compelled to allow the military almost a free hand in commandeering rolling-stock and riding roughshod over its behests.

We have already sufficiently insisted upon the nationalization of Chinese railways—that is, on the necessity of all railways being unified in a common system, and so-called railways concessions being pooled as soon as they have been built. In the past the method pursued by foreign interests has been as follows. After a bitter struggle in the dark, with every rival Legation working through every possible agency to prevent consummation, a railway concession (i.e. a building concession) is granted