To the Editor of the "*NOWTH-OHINA DAILY NEWS."
Str,—If it had not been for what I have en, up here I might have sympathized with those correspondents who have written to you advocating the formation of a Chinese Volunteer force in Shanghai. But the last few weeks have convinced me that for the present, at any rate, the defence and the offensive must be entirely in foreign hands, and that, however unkind and trustful it may seem, we must show the Chinese that we can not only defend ourselves, but put their own house in order without their help.
What happened in Tientsin? When things looked black for the foreign Settlement all the "enlightened" and progress sive Chinese merchants, compradores, boy: and coolies disappeared like rats from a sinking ship, and there is not a doubt that some whom foreigners had trusted and looked upon as friends of progress were spies in league with the ignorant fanatics and Inperial troops who very nearly over-came this Settlement. Why is it, Tshould like to ask, that practically the only natives im the Settlement are mostly the poorest class of Roman Catholic refugees, who probably remained in the Settlement, not much from fidelity to the foreigner, as from the knowledge that they would have short shrift amongst the Boxers outside? The Chinese here with all the colleges and schools did absolutely nothing for the in the time of trial, and, indeed, the military soon recognised that they were a source of absolute danger, as was proved by some arrests and a decision to get rid of as many as possible and as soon as possible.
Tam a friend of China, and know some Chinese I would trast in very tight" places, but to arm a body of Shanghai Chinese clerks, shroffs, college students, etc., with serious weapons, would, I submit, be decidedly risky. Even foreign volunteers are not much use unless they are properly trained, and how, even if imbued with the right spirit, the Chinese company is to be worth anything for the pres immediate need I fail to see.
Tam, etc., Josera H. O'Down.
Tientsiv, 16th July.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.