To the Editor of the "Nowru-Cunxa Darty News"
Si,—"The Chinese feel most urgently the' need of Brilish friend: ship." This appeal, quoted from Important Chinese' periodical, Is, 1 believe, representative of a\ wide. spread feeling on the part of the Chinese people, it ever, then, there was an opportunity for a statesmanlike demonstration of British friendship for China and of concern for peace n the Pacife it is now. Vitally urgent the need for British mediation. in the relations of China and' Japan strained as-they are to-day to the breaking point,
serious In itself, yet each in its deeper:
Incident heaps upon incident, each Implications freighted with a. warning of tragedy of fur direr import. Let us foreigners not be beguiled into; 4 perilous complacency bya habit of serene detachment from Chinese life and feelings. The pressure against the Chinese dykes of forbearance and endurance is) gaining a fearful 'Intensity, These scattered kilings are evidences of cracks that threaten a rumbling of the walls of restraint. 'The flood that Impends may well appel the world by' the volume and. violence of its rampage. "And. what of our fair city? By what super: natural ald dare we expect an munity from this peril that threatens engulf us?
The aspect of Shanghai's selt-interest i, however, subordinate to the greater interest of peace throughout this land, nay, of Far Eastern. and world beice, since the world is learn. ug that "peace.Is indivisible." "Anc What are the prospects for the preservation of this peace? By all th tokens "the outlook could" not be of September 25 from Tokyo makes this pla Apart from the recent incidents, however......oflelat circles are very. agatisted "With. the course of" the Fecont "negoilelons...:-unless the Chinese "Government showed" more sincerity, these' would be futile. In smeseures rear determination that event... Japan must. take other
the Chinese "authorities did. not Feally understand the situa tion, and the negotiations hitherto had made little progress."
Not a solitary glimmer of hope does this appraisal yield. "Alas! only. too} well do the Chinese "understand" the resent situation, and, strange obverse as it may seem to the Jap. anese, it {8 to the Japanese lack of "sincerity" that the present deadlock {is ascribed by the Chinese, 'To allow the position to drift is but {fo hasten the dilemma of an irresist-{ble force and an immovable object. With the arrival of "Britain's new' Ambassador, surely something can be done to stay the drift to a war on. Chinese sell: a war of necessarily exhausting duration, "waged—with great bitterness, in' the course of which the trade of the coastal regions and river ports, where foreign Interests are situated, will strangled, if the ports themselves are not reduced to 2 shambles.
Britain's "wait and see" policy, announced by Whitehall to-day, "may conceivably be justified in respect suggestion of "Intervention," but rly of "mediation" designed to sehieve a reconciliation. Since, as the Tokyo message records: "sagacious Japanese statesmen fully realize the Potential pitfalls of an embroilment with Ching," it is barely possible that Japan to-dsy might not be altogether ungrateful for the services of a third party in resolving an interminable ase.
Ching, for her part, looks now never before (excepting the days of the League's believed efficacy). Great Britain for succour in her dire peril; the while, it Is true, she Keeping her powder dry, as her enemies may discover to their cost. Within the past few ways, since the arrival
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.