To the Editor of the "Nortx-Cuina Dary News"
Sm,—We read that many of those who have been evacuated from Shanghai and those who have not yet returned from their summer vacations are now aching to return. It appears that in some of the broadcasts and other statements emanating from Shanghai, it has been said that conditions in the Foreign Settlements are getting back to normal. In all events the impression seems to have been created in the minds of some of those who wish to return that conditions have improved so greatly during the past week as to warrant their return, While it is true that the extreme tension of the first week has fortunately relaxed considerably, yet it would be grossly misrepresenting the state of affairs to state that conditions have improved so greatly as to be getting back to normal. With sandbag lookouts being erected at numerous street corners, with barbed defenses being put in place at tain street crossings, with ocean steamers refusing to call at Shanghai. with business and industry still at almost a complete standstill, with the Shanghai Power Company carrying but 1/6 of its usual load, with a huge programme of refugee relief in progress, with a number of the big hotels and busitcss buildings still closed or ority partially open, with the continued threats of aeroplane and bombing raids. with almost the entire districts north of Soochow Creek still in the status of no-man's land, with the Shanghai Gas Company still considering it inadvisable to function, with the vast. majority of Shanghai's innumerable factories still closed down and hundreds of thousands thrown out of work there-and with communications between Some of the theorists to whom these words are addressed are also extremely competent students of rhetoric, and may be so fascinated by the form that they may mistake the substance. Those who read the statement will most certainly appreciate the rhetorical elegance of this piece of Japanese art, but to ensure their not overlooking the: meaning, my presumption may be forgiven if T undertake to remove the trappings of verbal embellishment and render in simple language just wat Japan is telling the world in this pronouncement.
1. Japan declares she will search neutral It will facilitate matters, the statement adds, if the concerned owners will cooperate to the extent of telling the Shanghai and the interior most difficult and in some directions impossible, what justification has any one to state that conditions in Shang hai are returning to normal or hav improved to such an extent as to warrant any of the thousands of women and children who have been evacuated or are absent from Shanghai otherwise, feeling that they might safely return?
Thus it is suggested that great care be exercised when broadcasting or holding forth otherwise on conditions in Shanghai that poor word "normal" be not too grossly overworked. When speaking of conditions in the Foreign Settlements as improving, it would be well to be very careful to qualify the statement so as not to mislead "listeners in" to conclude that the situation has bettered to such an extent as to warrant their boarding the first available steamer for Shanghai. Probably it would be better to give the word norma?' a vacation for a while and consider that it too has been evacuate ed and while we all shall be only too glad to welcome it back, yet much will have to be done to prepare the way before this can be done.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.