Gaudy Dreams

"Be bold! Be bold!" was a favorite Occidental maxim of the late, sainted Dr. Sun Yat-sen (TIME, March 23, 1925), founder of China's present Nationalist Government. Nearly always the tail end of the maxim (". . . but not too bold!") was docked in quotation by dynamic, heroic Sun Yatsen. Last week it seemed that the penchant for daring of Saint Sun was cropping out strongly in his son, Mr. Sun Fo, who is Chinese Minister of Railways and Reconstruction. Without batting either of his eyes, Mr. Sun coolly asked legislative approval for a 50-year program of public works to cost the breath-taking sum of 12 billion 500 million dollars. Bold and ten times bold, this scheme would commit the fledgling, two-year-old Nationalist Government to pour out every year, for public works alone, a treasure half as large as the stupendous annual tribute which the Great Powers hope to wring from Germany in Reparations. China would spend $250,000,000 each year, while Germany must pay between $400,000,000 and $600,000,000 annually, depending on the decision of J. P. Morgan and others now in Paris.

Seemingly quite oblivious that he was proposing the impossible, Mr. Sun told the Nationalist Congress in Nanking (see p. 28) that China "should" raise $100,000,000 a year in taxes for his public works program, "should" borrow another $100,000,000 annually from the Great Powers, and "should" issue $50,000,000 of "Reconstruction Bonds" every twelvemonth. Thus, said Mr. Sun, China "could" raise the annual $250,000,000 requisite to carry out the following Sun Program: 1) Complete the $3,000,000 tomb of Saint Sun Yat-sen in Nanking, a project already well begun; 2) Rebuild Nanking as a "modern capital," with a "White Hall" for the President of China and "Six Civic Quarters" - governmental, educational, commercial, industrial, residential and celestial -the latter to be the "Purple Hills Quarter" containing the tomb of Saint Sun; 3) Level the walls of Ancient Nanking as the walls of Paris were leveled in the reign of Louis XIV (1638-1715) and lay out on their foundations a "Parisian" circle of boulevards 150 feet wide; 4) Construct throughout China 20,000 miles of railway, 10,000 miles of motor highways, and literally innumerable flood control works and civic buildings in the provinces.

Though sound enough in its details, Mr. Sun's program -proposed last week "in the name of Dr. Sun, my glorious father" -is invalidated as a whole, first by the impossibility of borrowing enough money to carry it out (even supposing the National Government were stable, which it is not), and second by the fact that 20,000,000 Chinese are on the verge of starvation today, and sooner or later their crying need must take precedence over gawdy dreams of making Nanking a second Paris, providing President Chiang Kai-shek with a "White Hall," and stowing away the bones of Saint Sun on the "Purple Hills." Last week the U.S. Minister to China, John Van Antwerp MacMurray, cabled to the China Famine Relief Fund, No. 205 E. 42nd St., Manhattan, that of the 20,000,000 Chinese now starving, 16,000,000 will unquestionably die, no matter how quickly funds are rushed to aid. Persons desirous of saving the 4,000,000 lives which can still be saved must send checks with all despatch.

Meanwhile the Nationalist Government, while doing little or nothing to relieve the famine, has just paid out $2,000 to Music Master Cheng Mao-chin of the National Center University at Nanking for writing the following Song of Nationalism, now officially proclaimed the Chinese National Anthem. In literal translation, this hymn, stilted, reads:

"The Three People's Principles,* in which we put our faith, will make the nation a democratic success, and will help to form a Universal Nations' Union. Ye, oh Nationalists, are the vanguards of the people, and our hope is that ye will do faithful duty by day and by night. Ye must obey the principles, and ever be brave and diligent, and loyal and faithful. Ye, oh People, must have one heart from beginning to end."

* As laid down by Dr. Sun Yat-sen these slogans are: 1) ''National Unity!" 2) '"National Democracy!" 3) "Livelihood for All!"