Former Shanghai Council Members' Forceful Reply to Aspersions in a British Journal "sir Edward Pearce, Me. E. F. Mackay, Mr. A. Brooke Smith and Mr, H. G. Simms, former members of the Shanghai Municipal Council and of the Committee of the Shanghai British Chamber of Commerce. make a joint reply in a recent issue of "The New Statesman" to a cor respondent, who wrote to that journal regarding the attitude of Britishers in China towards the Chinese. Their letter is as follows:
In your issue of March 17 a core respondent in China, signing himself "J. D.." gives his impression Of the attitude of the English towards the Chinese among whom they live, He anticipates that what he writes may seem a gross exaggeration to anyone who has not been in China. To those who have ven in China it certainly is.
"Class" Suggestion Refuted He begins by describing the average Englishman going out to China as a person with the one iden of making his pile and returning home with enough money and influence to put him in a class above the one he would have been in if he had gone into business in his own country. "J. D." appears to be an outstanding' example of type of person obsessed with a feeling of elnss inferiority, and Jocks with a jealous eye on' those enjoying a society from which he ig for some reason barred. Tt must be admitted that the average Eng-Jishman goes out to China to make money, but we refute the class sug gestion, for such a thing never enters his head, since as a rule he is quite innocent of class conscious-
"J.D." then describes the Englishman's first. six months China, He is told that the Chinese are queer people, but as they are useful he fs advised to keep in with "these Chinks.""Burther, that initiation into foreign community Jife consists of going to clubs, hotels, cabarets, cinemas and places of Vices and driving his motor-car through evil-smelling Chinese quar ters where the native jis too stupid to get out of his way.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.