◆ SpookStack

Pearl Buck interprets the chaos in China The People - | Will Be Free =_.. THEIRS tS NOT A CONFLICT OF IDEOLOCIES BUT A BIRTH STRUGGLE TO GAIN THE GREAT RIGHTS OTHER MEN ELSEWHERE HAVE BUT NEWLY WON... TO LIFE AND LIBERTY AND THE POSSIBILITY OF HAPPINESS ~ Or and painfully the lessen of our times is being writ so large and plain that even the politicians of the world can read it. The peoples will be served. That which has he- come explosion in China tuoh place quietly in England at the end of the war, has just taken place in its fash- ion in the United States, je still strug: gling to take place in Europe. In In- dia, too, the people are watching and wailing. They are giving their own government a chance. Tf it should fail them, if it dors not serve them, the mighty uproar would burst forth there, too. Latest of all will at cose in the countries of South Ntaerics and in Africa, Bat even there it has begun. The people everwhere aie waking to the knowledge that thes have the sight te tive. the night te be 6 free, the right to pursue happiness. Seeds planted centuries ago in ku- rope, seeds brought first frum Asia, ° and then to the New World. are now coming to flower and fruit. in this. the greatest age which the human race has ever seen. Those seeds, some of them, came from China. The idea of the sover- cignty of the people and the duty of government to serve them is as old as Confucius himself. Hes entirely fitting and te he expected that the mst spectacular flewergag. therefore, chould be ja China today. What is happenin: there is he sudden puch of political adventarers. \dventorers al ware cere there chance incans die dure. and thes ray de se trie, Vaat only the superficial mend Ct tis ae my China dedax. oa an the world. a ified Detween twa ilecdenpaes. Itaw el even aconflien at is a slrug- gle not by dwe but by one and that one is the people, of China as of the te emerge into a place where world they can ive. VE Communism serves. Communism mas continue, Pf Com- muniem, toe, fails the people, then it vill be cast away and the struggle will goon, nol aginst other peoples. not Letween peoples. but for Hife itself The people of any and all countries du not want wars of mutual destruc tion, They ate all -teaggling separate: ly and even blindly toward the same gual. as plants, weak and strong alike. strugple with irresistible force toward the light. This is the lesson of our limes and it remains to be seen who learns it first. The uncs who do will have the power of shaping the new age. But they will keep this power only so Jong as the people, any and all, have hope of their being served. China is huge. and whatever hap- pens there happens on a massive scale. A little over twenty years ago Chiang Kai shek, still young and vig- orous, arrived in Nanking to set up a new government. The people of China received him with welcome. He had his chance. They give anyone a chance. They have given him twenty years to prove that his government could serve the people. Today they _ are on the search again, in search o w ornk not heen able To gy uy. They are hungry and “gre ragged and none has clothed them. They are sick and not healed. they are ignorant and not taught. All this they know and they are on the march again. It is not yet an active march, in spite of rice riots and ref- ugees. Most Chinese are still at home. They stay until the last moment in _their villages and market towns and little cities. They seem passive until despair is complete, they seem indil- ferent even as the Communist hordes threaten and overwhelm. But they are neither passive nor indifferent; with furious determination they are active- ly searching for those who will give them their rights. What shall we do? What can we do? When IT say we, PF mean first the bewildered and even terrified nations whe behold this mighty spectacle in China. The United Nations, perhaps, can le nothing. since they have not vet forged the arm of supra-national Fooperative poverbment, whieh alone - weuld be able to act at this moment. _ d them, They