To the Editor of the "Nontn-Cnina Dary News"
—Some people are incor theorists and seem unable to view realities for what they are because the latter do not fit in with the tern of theories.
It is a theory, for example, that nations at war are governed by,.certain supposedly accepted rules of warfare, Therefore, if a belligerent should ignore those rules, our theory ists cry out and charge the guilty belligerent with unlawful conduct, imagining thereby that the charge will result in the stopping of the un-Yawful conduct, or have some practical effect calculated to injure the belligerent guilty of such conduct.
I crave the courtesy of your columns for some observations which I hope will conduce to the disillusionment of the numerous idealistic theorists who are wasting a great deal of energy indulging the futile Ptactice of getting—themselves wrought up uselessly, and boring their more réalistical! inclined friends who, these days, are less disposed to indulge the foibles of those seeking to maintain an academic thesis having absolutely no relation to ineradicable facts.
I take for my subject the official statement of the Japanese Govern ment, released in Shanghai yesterd: and published in your, columns day, relating to the Nipponese blockade of the China coast, Under the theory of international law, no war exists between China and Japan and therefore ich a blockade as that which Japan is maintaining along the coast of China is illegal, hence, indefensible. Japan has no right under the recognized tenets of international law to clu what that official statement declares Japan is doing and will do in connection with the blockade.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.