The pungent comment of "The Times" on the present Sino-Japanese situation comes as 0 powerful reinforcement of the suggestions offered by this journal that moderato should be the direction written on the score of both participants in the forthcoming diplomatic duet. "The Times" made no bones about it, Japan, it declared, is following a policy' which will result In war with China—an attempt to conquer the unconquerable. As the journal remarked, not a particle of evidence has been provided by the official Japanese inquiries into the recent outrages against Japanese subjects resident in this country which can support the belief that they are a result of anti-Japanese agitation sponsored by the. Nanking Govern ment or the, Kuomintang. The warning to both parties in the negotiations which have opened Nanking with the call of Mr. Shigeru Kawagoe, the Japanese ambassador, on General Chiang Kaishek, the chalriian of the Executive Yuan, is clear. War to China might mean the setting bock by a quarter of a century of the progress being made towards converting this country Into a modern state, with modern Industries and "an economic and political philosophy sulted to its stage in development. To Japan it might mean a process of "attrition which would sap the vitality of that great nation to an almost fatal degree. The dongers to both parties the negotiations must be fully realized by those who are about 10 conduct them. Japanese reasonableness, met with @ real desire on the part of China to find a way out of the present impasse, can only react to the advantage of both countries Japanese unreasonableness is likely to create alarm in other countries over the safely of their investments in China and the prosperity of their traders, and to alienate still further those elements among the Chinese who are willing to consider a rational way out of the present muddle, without too much insistence upon Hghts eld" down' by. international law. It would be a thousand pities it anyone should commit hari-Kiri over a problem which might easily bbe solved with an ounce of restraint and common sense.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.