For instance, why shoul the Shanghai community allow the diplomats to take from it the an thority or power to hold its own inquiry under competent judges into the causes and facts of the present trouble which began on May 30, but whose end. no one can foresee? Even the home papers, far away as they are from the scene of action, are alive to the fact that the holding of an inquiry into the May 30 incident is Shanghai's own affair, "and that there are men fully competent to act as judges in such an inquiry fable on the spot. Why cannot the Municipal Council take back the right to hold an inquiry, get at the facts and adopt a strong me of action.
Answerable as it is to the ratepayers who elect the members of the Municipal Council, why does not that body call a general ratepayers meeting, ascertain the general public feeling, and ask for a vote of confidence and full support in a vigorous line of action to end the present situation?
Hindsight is easier than fore-slit, but it becomes increasingly evident that the line of action which should have been adopted over the May 30 incident was (1) The holding of a public inquest over the bodies of the deceased, (2) The trial of the rioters without allowing any discussion as to whether the police were just-jed in the action they took to quell the riot, to be dragged into fog the issue, and (3) With the records and findings of these two actions, the institution of an is quiry into the action of the police.
As matters now stand. there is not even an agreement as to what really did happen—how then can any settlement be' arrived at?
Tt is-not too'late to remedy matters to a certain extent by holding an inquiry not only - into the actual fracas: in Nanking. Road and the police action on May 30, the Chinese authorities while issuing proclamations calling for the preservation of law and order, are lowed to sneak into the settlement, where it is next to impossible to detect them, and there carry out their nefarious aims, even to the length of kidnapping those willing to work for foreigners and cartying them back to Chinese territory to be dealt with with the utmost ferocity by crazed agitators.
Chinese newspapers are allowed to publish any lie, make any extravagant demand, and advocate any violence or hostile action against foreigners they like, without even a warning from the authorities.
Big Chinese commercial firms, doing business actually within the foreign settlement, are donating large sums to the support of strikers, meanwhile reaping a rich reward for their perfidy in securing a large portion of the business of competitive foreign firms.
Stoning of buses and trams from Chinese territory is of frequent o0- currence, and hire we all sit, expecting our overworked police to accomplish the impossible in coping with an enemy that has all the vantages of disguise, mobility and a safe territory to escape into, while none of the numerous things that might be done to defeat this enemy are done.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.