July 22.
Some anxiety has been caused in the Russian community of Shanghai by the report that Soviet newspapers are particularly incensed at the story that China is intriguing with Ataman Simi-on off to raise a corps of White Russian emigres against the Soviet. The report from Moscow is characteristically embroidered. Ataman Simionoff, xe are told, instigated the raid upon the Russian Consulate in Harbin, having previously "planted" there forged documents for the Chinese police to find. It is an interesting example of Bolshevik ingenuity in inventing a counteattach to the charge of the Chinese Eastern Railway being' used for Communist propaganda. Simionoff has been the centre of many picturesque stories in the past eleven years, since his undoubtedly dashing organization of a Mongol-Buriat force for the defence of Chita, which was afterwards taken over by Admiral Koltchak. Perhaps it may be said that he is the sort of Person round whom legend easily gathers, and such people can always find a few adventurous associates, nobody being in ed to take them too seriously. But between the Ataman and the overwhelming majority of Russians in China, there is nothing in common.
With such a crisis arisen between their native country and that of their adoption, the Ru: sians in China, of whom, exclude ing those in' the Manchurian railway zone, there are perhaps 16,000, nearly two-thirds of them in Shanghai alone, cannot but feel that their position is a delicate one, No man of normal nature can see his native land on the verge of war, without some momentary natural feeling for her, But this emotion is quickly' submerged by the thought that those who are involved in the quarrel are the same who are the cause of 30 many thousands being driven abroad into exile, safe to say that throughout, the Russian community of Shanghai the-only desire is to live in peace and loyalty with the Chinese who have given them shelter. Towards the Soviet they can have nothing but abhorrence. Between China and the Russians within her borders relationships ere good, as witness the case of the Dalbank which, since it was reopened last year under the supervision of 4 Chinese Committee, has come to be allowed to manage its own affairs with confidence on both sides. Furthermore, one may once more recall the admirable behaviour of Russians in China during the past ten years. With all the privations they have had to endure, with all the temptations to which they must have been exposed, how infinitesimal is their record of misdemeanours, how few acts of crime can be laid to their charge, They have gone quietly to work to make themselves a home in China with a constancy worthy of high praise, and their attitude to this country in the present crisis is what it should be to their home,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.