"That's Much Better!"

In the small hours before dawn, 5,000 students gathered for a political parade through Chungking. They were dressed in the motley of China's youth--family hand-me-downs, G.I. castoffs, ragged patches. Many had walked as much as 20 miles to the city. A university dean accompanied them--in a ricksha supplied with sandwiches and oranges for wilted marchers.

Exuberantly, waving placards, urged on by cheerleaders, the students snaked through Chungking's winding main street. No one stopped them, no one dispersed them. They blocked all traffic, engulfed even the coolie coal-and-water bearers, whose makeway cries of "Hai! Hai!" were lost in the din of shouting youngsters.

At the greystone government building, where the Political Consultation Conference was in session, the paraders yelled for unity and democracy. Taking everything in their stride, they surged on to the British Embassy, crying "We want Hong Kong back!" His Majesty's imperturbable Ambassador, Sir Horace Seymour, sat imperturbably by the fireplace in his office. In the old days, he remembered, such demonstrations were commonplace--"It seems," he said, "that peace has really come to China!"

The French Embassy on Wingking Lane nervously heard that the demonstrators were on the way to demand the recall of the French consul general in Shanghai, because the French had shanghaied an alleged collaborator named Tosoli (wanted by the new all-Chinese Municipal Government) , and shipped him off to Indo-China. But Gallic jitters vanished when the Embassy learned that the students had already served protests elsewhere. "Ah," said a spokesman, "everybody is in trouble, out? That's much better!"

Democracy at Work. The students enlivened an otherwise constructive political week in Chungking. The Political Consultation Conference made steady, if unspectacular, progress.

On January 10 the 38 delegates to the P.C.C., an advisory body representing every shade of the nation's political color chart, had begun their task with cautious hope. Two notable events--a truce in the civil war, a bill of rights proclaimed by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek--augured well for their discussions. They debated with dignity and restraint, then sent their main problems to subcommittees for final recommendation. U.S. newsmen reported that the democratic process was genuinely in operation.

All parties approved, with a wait-and-see attitude, the Government bill of rights, promising civil liberties, release of political prisoners, legal standing for all parties, and local self-government. They agreed that the future constitution ought to have a legislature and cabinet combining the U.S. and British systems. They took a stand in principle against party armies: the future Chinese Army, an amalgam of Government and Communist forces, should be placed under a non-political Ministry of Defense.

The knotty details of combining military forces were in the hands of Communist General Chou En-lai and Government Generals Chang Chun and Chang Chih-chung. Last week they called again for counsel on U.S. Special Envoy George C. Marshall, whose astute mediation had played a key part in the truce agreement.

Face-Saving at Work. The week's most critical problem was that of government reorganization. For several days the P.C.C. deadlocked over the composition and power of a proposed State Council, which would be the nation's highest policy-making body. Suddenly, at 10 p.m., the Government's indefatigable Foreign Minister Wang Shih-chieh called on the Communists' trouble shooter, General Chou Enlai. He offered a face-saving, gentlemen's compromise.

The Kuomintang, still insisting on its historic responsibility for the nation's political tutelage, would retain the right to name all members of the Council. But this right would be largely a formality. In practice non-Kuomintang parties would designate half the councilors. As non-Kuomintang parties had demanded, the Council would have broader powers, including the right to override a Presidential veto by majority vote and to appoint and dismiss ministers.

Next day General Chou flew to Yenan to seek his party's assent. Not in a long time had optimism run quite so high in Chungking.

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