June 1.
'THE tragic encounter between police and students, which re-! sulted in the death of nine Chinese -and the wounding of Several others, is deeply deplored by every foreigner in Shang-is only in the mad imagitation of these wretched youths that any wish exists on the part of the Municipal Council to oppress the Chinese. Very. much the reverse. Indeed Saturday's riot is not a little due to. the Council's reluctance in recent months to take strong measures against the disaffected and disorderly. The fact that over a million Chinese are con. tent to dwell under the rule of the Municipal Council, vastly preferring it to that of tbeit own officials, is sufficient proof of the beneficence of that authority. In the now long history of Shanghai as a foreign settlement, disorders like that of Saturday afternoon are happily few and far between and it is the universal feeling of the foreign community, as it is the Policy of the Council, that every effort should be made, every possible conciliation tried, which may prevent the number being But while we heartily wish that the occasion had never arisen, there can be no question that, as it did arise, it was dealt with in the only possi!
No foreigner and no Chinese of any capacity for sober thought can hold any other view. The duty of a government is to govern, which duty includes, first of all, responsibility for the maintenance of peace and order. It is not less the busi-sines of the authorities to pre vent people from distributing evolutionary leaflets than it is to stop them from attacking Public buildings. The students, who were arrested for distributing leaflets and refusing to move.4n when told to do so, were quite rightly arrested; and, ex-riots by students and labourers in other places like Pel: ing and (Tsingtao have also certainly had fan inflammatory effect in Shang. hai. -And lastly there is the general reaction from the dis-larderly and anarchical state of China. Where polities end and mere student or labouring insubordination begins it would be difficult to say. But just as when an individual is in a nervous and irritable frame of mind, he will, in a moment of extra exasperation, hit out at anybody for nothing at all, so is it with @ nation. So intoler-lable has the general misgovernment of China become, that the public temper is ready to boil lover for any cause, and it is an old experience that when the mandarins misbehave, the foreigner is usually made the scapegoat. To revert for a moment to Bolshevism, of Russian agency: there are many signs that an increase of activity way looked for in this direction. The indications of special animosity against Marshei Chang Tso-lin, contained in recent telegrams, as also the hysterical cry from Moscow that the Japanese are seeking to dominate \all the Pacific are highly signi. ficant. In proportion as Marshal {Chang's influence widens, 0 will the efforts of Bolshevism to undermine him be intensified: and the events of Saturday afternoon show that the! plenty of misguided Ci blindly eager to bring further misfortune on their country by
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.