Foolish or the Balto of the "Nonmiccuna Day News"
Sin—It itis rue, a8 you suggest in your comment on it, that the HIRE. Have "not only" printed but nave trondeasted "the. aniing "nonsense rung together by Mr. Tlchard Pyke fu the subject of Shanghai and reprinted "In to-day's sue of your Daper, it is an outrage not only on Shanghai but on the radio public.
"The BBC, operates under Heence from the Postmaster General, ud is Giassed as n Publis, ie not a Govern iment, office. "The 'Chairman, Viee-Chaléman ad Governors are appotnt-HM, Government. Thiele Salaries are:" Chairman, 23,000 per annum, Vice-Chairman "21,00, Gove Srnors' Cot which there are three) '2100 apiece, 'Then there is Sit John Tlth,"the 'Dizestor-General and his staff," The Corporalion's income Is Immense from the. eight milieu eeriees" taken' out" by "the British radio. public. The tater have. the Hight (a sound, Unimpeashable cute Bight million British radios have the: opportunity to tune in fo any programme from Broad easing House. At'a modest computation let us say that! 20 million Britons, now under-Stand, with the blessing of the BBC, that Shanghai is the "Where of A It" mattered not what. 3dr. Pyke thought of Shanghat unfit he was put before & BIB.C. mleroplione, and {nit mattered. very yeh, Unwise to minimise the harm done.
Ta. Chinege had dashed down Ox-fora 'Street, had had the onside of Some cheap night clube' pointed out him, taken n-quica glance at Hyde Pork, rushed hurriedly down tothe East End to give the once over to a fiom or two, and then when he got back "fo "Shanghai "had. stood up Before 'a. microphone' and told his fellow countrymen terrible tale of London, we should think him either "fool ora knave. and the some of tha people who authorised his broads fast""And thet. is" what "we. must this of Int. Pyke ands, sponsors commonest, it not the: only yersen why anyone iver in Shanghai to make money—to make a mini um or a maximum a5. quickly ossiblo—to make money" and. get gut That isthe "other part "of Shanghol's tragedy." "Why doos Mr. articles? Isn't Pyke write one-sided, " misleading for exactly the He is very scathing about the Japanese forces—they are sailors, but ho thinks they are soldiers. Dia he Prefer the sight of the U.S, Marines, or the British regiments? They are all here for, the same purpose—but they wouldn't quite Int into the picture he wished to draw, so. he. didn't mention them, © The brave attractions of the Night Club district can most fairly be treated in silence, he says—he's right, because it doesn't xs 'The sights and smells of the Chie nese City are terrible to him—his great-grandfather would have seen Rathing unusual in' them. "China Where we wore 150 years ago. Sens sible people remember it, and make allowances. He complains "because fow, if any, white men settle in Shahghal, That is not true, But if was would he, by the same analogy, omand that every white man. who goes to Indfa should settle there? Must every Chinese who goes to the U.S.A, Australia, or Malaya be on exile for life, or'is it only the white man who must face It?
Mr. Pyke says not a word about such things as the Lester Institute and School and the Lester Hospital for Chinese, all benefactions of an Englishman who made his money in Shanghai, or of the countless other schools, colleges and. hospitals. for Chinese which are the result of Shanghai's contact with the foreigner. Probably he never heard of them.' He is complimentary to the Civic Centre, doubtless because he imagines it owes nothing to. foreign, inspiration, It would be a poetic revenge to commission the next Shanghai jour-alist going home on leave to. investigate the worst of London's slums, to craw! round the night clubs and walk" Piccadilly "at midnight, and bring, back the results to be broad= casted in Chinese as the story of the London of to-day. place of honour and is the fourth of 8 series called "Round the Corner in the Far East" and. ils subject is ingham, A curious, ramping, raving little article it is, written by some tone who sees in' Shanghai all the wickedness of the Scarlet. Woman—the "Where of Asia" he actually calls het, To. him "Shanghai" means money-grubbing, night-life, and slums.
It wouldn't matter at all: what Mr. Pyke thought of Shanghai it only the B.B.C. hadn't allowed him to tell it to the world, or at least that part of it that reads "The Listener." One thought better of the BBC.
"The commonest, If not the only reason why anyone lives In Shanghai to make money." "And why does anyone live in Birmingham," Mfanchester, Wigan, Shem™eld-—London Itself for that matter unless they are very rich?
Mir. Pyke says that Shanghai has homogeneous population of the third and fourth generation—"few, if any, while men who would stay there unless they had to." Well, Shanghai Is only 94 years od, so that it can't be very ancestral, but there are a good many white families in the Second and third generation already. Still, how should Mr. Pyke know them?
This gentleman knows nothing of history. "He cannot have read of the Ath of London streets 200 years ago. and the sights that could be seen in them, or he would not be so seathing over what he saw in the streets of the Chinese City. He does not know what working conditions were in his own country for women and children within the me of people alive today.
Th fact, Mr. Pyke is nothing more than a quill driver, seeing' sights which he cannot value or profit' by because he knows nothing of their history or what they mean, But he_ Is able to do quite a lot of harm because of the pulpit vouchsafed 10 him by the BBC. They are the real culprits, and very dificult to punish, One of two ideas must be regretfully held about the publication of this article—that, the B.B.C, knew better than to print it, oF that, know= ing better, they were'so false to the trust placed in them that they allowed it to appear.
Shanghai, Sept, 2.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.