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Mme. Chiang Sees China of Future Free of West and Leader of Asia

Exploitation Within Country Will Also Be Outlawed, She Says, but Capitalism is Required to Develop Resources

The following discussion of the post-war order that China is fighting to bring into being is part of an article that Mme. Chiang Kai-shek, American-education wife of the Chinese leader, cabled to The Atlantic Monthly from Chungking. It is published today by the magazine and released to The Associated Press.

By MAYLING SOONG CHIANG (Mme. Chiang Kai-shek)

It may not seem to be the best of good sense to prepare plans for architectural improvements while the house is still afire and one is having hard work to extinguish the flames.

Yet the United Nations realize that after the war is won new problems will automatically arise which will demand for their solution as much thought, devotion, and practical application of idealism as winning the war itself.

We in China, though we have been harried for years by death and destruction, have been giving careful thought toward the perfection of a political and social system that will insure in the future the greatest good for the greatest number.

All the existing systems of government in the world -and this applies to the non-aggressive as well as to the aggressive nations- are being weighed in the remorseless balance of war. Some, we are sure, will not survive the test, but all have shown weaknesses that call for drastic alterations. "It is only the very wisest and the very stupidest who never change," observed one of our sages.

We have chosen the path that we shall tread in the future.

We are determined that there shall be no more exploitation of China.

I have no wish to harp on old grievances, but realism demands that I should mention the ruthless and shameless exploitation of our country by the West in the past and the hard-dying illusion that the best way to win our hearts was to kick us in the ribs. Such asinine stupidities must never be repeated as much for your own sake as for ours.

America and Britain have already shown their consciousness of error by voluntarily offering to abrogate the [[iniquitous]] system of extraterritoriality that denied China her inherent right to equality with other nations.

All Exploitation Precluded

While as a nation we are resolved that we will not tolerate foreign exploitation, we are equally determined that within our country there be no exploitation of any section of society by any other section or even by the State itself.

In post-war China, although we shall not countenance exploitation, international or nation, we shall grant private capital its rightful place, for it implements individual initiative, and we Chinese, being realists, fully recognize basic facts.

Our age-old civilization ha been developed through harmonizing conditions as they existed and as they ideally should be. But no individual will be permitted to wax rich at the expense of others. The rights of the people will be protected by progressive taxation.

I maintain that when income exceed legitimate needs and a reasonable margin to ensure freedom from want, the excess should belong to humanity.

On the other hand, private capital must be given every encouragement to develop the resources and industry of the country -but only in cooperation with labor. All public utilities should be State owned.

Any governmental policy in China ought to take cognizance of the all-important fact that we are an agricultural nation. Over 90 per cent of our people are dependent directly or indirectly upon the land-the overwhelming proportion directly.

It follows that the nation cannot flourish unless the farmers are prosperous.

At present they are enjoying a degree of prosperity undreamed of since the golden age.

As a by-product of war, prices for all that comes from the land have increased so much that the standard of living of the rural population has reached a height that did not seem possible. Children are attending school who formerly never would have had a chance of education; homes that have been perforce mere inadequate protection from the elements are being made hygienic and comfortable.

Golden Age Heralded

This is as it should be.

We want these gains held and consolidated.

There has been one fly in the ointment-there always is: While those who live on and by the land have prospered, government [[employees]] and men and women classed as intellectuals have been having a hard time to make ends meet. But they represent a very small percentage of our people; when victory is won a permanent solution of their difficulties will be arrived at.

In order to give our people fuller and better opportunities for a rounded and happier life, a new kind of Chinese socialism, based on democratic principles, is evolving. It is no mere pale reflection of Western socialism. China colors all seas that wash her shores. We do not necessarily reject everything the West has to offer; to views of modern socialists we lend a willing ear, more especially as most of their ideas found their counterpart in the third of the three principles envisaged by our late leader, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, upon which our whole ideology is based.

These three principles are: first, nationalism; second, the people's rights; third, the people's livelihood.

Nationalism means that there should be equality among all peoples and races and that all peoples should respect each other and live in peace and harmony.

The people's rights mean that the people should have these four rights: election, recall, initiative, and referendum.

The people's livelihood means that people are entitled to proper clothing, food, housing and communications.

Socialism has influenced national though in China for decades even amid the confusion caused by civil unrest and the present war. But it doe not have any affiliation with communism.

The Chinese do not accept the much-mooted theory of enriching the poor by dispossessing present owners of their wealth, nor do they believe such a step would give any prospect of an enduring alleviation of poverty and human misery. We prefer leveling up to leveling down.

One of our national characteristics is not to do things without careful deliberation.

Those who are [[privileged]] to direct the aspirations of a quarter of the world's population have a wonderful opportunity but a fearful responsibility.

This responsibility has grown weightier now that China has become the leader of Asia. If their program for social and political development is carelessly planned, they will imperil the happiness of hundred of millions of their fellow countrymen and jeopardize the very core of world society. No instrument devised by human brains can be absolutely perfect.

We, however, are recruiting the wisest intelligence available among our people in order to insure that the political and economic machinery which will swing into full operation in China after the war will be as nearly perfect as possible and susceptible of readjustment without causing civil unrest.

To my mind democracy means representative government, and by "representative" I mean representative of the steadfast and settled will of the people as opposed to the irresponsible and spell-binding slogans of political hawkers.

Furthermore, in a true democracy the minority parties should not be left out of consideration. I am opposed to any system which permanently gives absolute power to a single party. That is the negation of real democracy, to which freedom of thought and progress are essential.

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