Soong Scores

On her northern frontiers China seemed girding for war last week (see below), but 1,200 miles to the south a victory for peace was scored by the famed House of Soong, the Chinese bankers who hold the purse strings and often dictate the policy of the Nationalist Government.

Fortnight ago Banker T. V. Soong told his brother-in-law President Chiang Kai-shek that China's huge military establishment must be curtailed. Otherwise, he said, not even the House of Soong could keep China's treasury from going bankrupt. When President Chiang--onetime field marshal and conqueror of all China--hesitated to yield, Banker Soong handed in his resignation as Finance Minister, was soon and repeatedly begged by the President to withdraw it, refused (TIME, Aug. 19). Last week the brothers-in-law held a further series of earnest conferences at Shanghai. In the end Banker Soong scored an impressive win. Presently he told correspondents in the smooth English he learned at Harvard that he had withdrawn his resignation as Finance Minister with the understanding that: 1) China's largest-standing-army-in-the-world (250,000) will be "quickly" reduced to one-half its present strength; 2) President Chiang and the War Office will for the first time conduct military operations on a stated budget; 3) the Finance Minister will in future be consulted and deferred to by the War Office in fixing the sums allotted in the military budget.