General Chiang Kal-shek's tour of the waredevastated areas of Chapel, which he made during his surprise visit to Shanghai on Tuesday, ought to give an impetus to the reconstruction programme which has progressed only tardily in comparison with out lying villages which suffered almost total destruction. Large areas in Chapel once covered with houses and shops are still bare patches, many them with the ruins still standing and others with the salvaged bricks neatly piled up for future we. As a monument to an unhappy incident. the history of Shanghai they are impressive in their appeal, but in the heart of a busy and populous city they constitute a challenge to municipal development which ought to be remedied. Smaller towns and vill ike Woosung, Kiangwan and Tacha which were even more badly battered in the fighting, have been practically Febuilt and show few signs of the ordeal through which they passed. In addition, native enterprise wedded 10} that amazing Chinese capacity recovery, have even transformed and improved these places. Of course, th revenue of the local Chinese authorites suffered a serious decline as result of the trouble, but the necessity of rebuilding war-torn Chapei stil retains its urgency and is a task to which the Chinese authorities should apply themselves immediately conditions permit.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.