Is America's attitude with regard to China about to undergo a change as @ consequence of the Coltman murder? That is what Japanese papers are asking to-day in considering the reparations demanded from the Ohinese Government by the United States, which the Japanese press term ''very exacting." It ig pointed out that Chinai has forfeited ai considerable amount of the sympathy the Powers were always ready to extend to her, and that both Britons in Chinai as well as Americans residing there are requesting of their respective Governments a more positive policy towards China, instead of allowing her to go on in the feeble, incompetent way she has been doing, endangering the lives of foreign residents and dislocating business and commerce. There is no doubt that Japanese have been feeling considerable anxiety over their nationals in China, especially as Japan has suffered, numerically a' least, far more losses and deaths than other nationalities, and has refrained from being stricter towards China merely because it was agreed at Washington that China be given a chance to put her house in order. This chance hag been given, they say, and instead of setting to work to do something constructive, foreigners, their lives and property are in jeopardy most of the time, if they happen to be inland.
Americtty will realize that their The papers express hopes that
knowledge of China and the Chinese, so far, has been one not strictly compatible with the real forts, and that perhaps the Coltman murder has opened their eyes to the actual state of affairs, but, at the same time, the better section of the press trusts that neither Great Britain nor America will adopt anything like a coercive policy towards China, "as this will give chauvinists in Japan an opportunity for raising their heads and bring about a state of affairs rela. tive to China as bad, or even worse than that which existed previous to the calling of the Washington Conference."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.