Que past week has brought no material change in the situation of the Russian refugees at Woosung, though it is whispered that not a few of them, preferring to risk the unknown privations of life on sh re to the known discomforts of board-ship life in the Yangtze, have managed to; slip ashore at night time. For which no one can blame them.
To the main question, what is to become of the refugees, there is no satisfactory answer. The Chinese are understood to be ready to provide the necessary coal and supplies to enable the ships to go somewhere else. But where they are to go, nobody can say. If any responsible authority is negotiating with the Vladivostok Government for a guarantee of their safety if they return, we have not heard of it. The fact reported in to-day's telegrams that foreign consuls are to remain in Vladivostok suggests that the outside world might be kept in touch with the refugees' fate if they did go back. Meanwhile, we can only hope that the appeal for money, Warm clothing and other means of mitigating the wretchedness of the refugees' lot at Woosung, which appears in our correspondence to-day, will meet with a generous response.
But there are two problems at Woosung, as the second letter we publish to-day clearly shows; and the fact that there are other destitute Russians in Shanghai, or that more may come from other ports, or that, to do anything for these people may land us in diplomatic difficulties with the Bolsheviks, does not appear to relieve us of special consideration for the cadets. If we have written nothing on this subject since last Monday, it is that the possibility of a private organization coming to the rescue has been mooted: We are not at liberty to be more particular: but if this chance break down, and if it be impossible to secure the refugees' return to Vladivostok, there appears no alternative but that Shanghai must be prepared to grapple with the problem. The boys cannot be left indefinitely on board these little boats; sooner or later disease v ill break out among them, not to mention the normal discomfort of their position. We urged last week that the Chinese authorities would endeavour to find disused barracks to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.