Too Hot

When the Nine Power Chinese Customs Conference assembled at Peking (TIME, Nov. 2 et seq.) its august corps of diplomats and experts remarked with favor upon the clear crispness of the air, the unexpected comfort of their quarters, the warm hospitality of foreigners resident in Peking. Came winter and the delegates turned their collars up, hovered o'er inadequate stoves. Came spring, and blinding sandstorms swept the city, rasped the delegates' throats with an abrasive fog. Came summer, blazing, searing. Still the accomplishments of the conference were almost nil. Little or nothing has been accomplished because the Government of China has become a myth, the shadow of a name, and left no responsible authority at Peking with which the delegates could deal. They have stayed on--through cold, sand, heat--hoping that after Super-Tuchun Feng Yu-hsiang was ousted from Peking (TIME, April 5, et seq.) its co-conquerors, Super-Tuchuns Wu Pei-fu and Chang Tso-lin, would set up a stable government. That hope has eluded fulfillment like a mirage and Peking has grown hot, hotter, too hot. Last week the delegates passed a motion to adjourn indefinitely, packed their traps and trinkets, departed.