areas here are inclined to consider the danger to be far less probable than in other provinces where conditions have inured the inhabitants to practices and the vicissitudes of irregular warfare, In other words the Japanese, who themselves must benefit from the simplifica tion of the unemployment situation in Shanghai, can afford' to show courage in giving facilities for the return of refugees to their villages.
This would enormously lighten the strain on Shanghai's resources and clear the way for tackling the problem of the unemployed for whom Shanghai is home and who, short of a complete collapse, could not usefully be transferred to other districts. Even sv, it is essential that some effort should be made to deal with a large number of workless who will not be absorbed readily by the reopening, of industrial enterprises, limited as that operation is certain to be for some time to come. As the Public Works departments of the two foreign municipalities have had to} reduce their staffs and curtail their activities, it is obvious that first call on their resump: tion of such works as road-mencing, road-widening and road-construction or cognate developments must lie with their presently unoccupied labour. Yet it is not good that a vast section of the population should be living on charity without employment of some kind, There is no evidence that the situation cannot be tackled, provided understanding of it and a real interest in its human realities are available, The problem resolves itself into the ascertainment of some forth of occupation which docs not compete with the regular public works, albeit it may not do more than keep the refugees in food] and protect them against the demoralizing, processes of idleness. The evolution of the unemployable from the ranks of the unemployed is rapid and should be resisted at all costs. Shanghai, too, has a special interest for the sake of the recovery of its industries, in seeing that skilled labour is not driven out of the city by the persistence of a long period of inactivity. The Labour Projects Committee of the China International Famine Relief Commission has these considerations in mind, It requires the wholehearted cooperation of the municipal and other authori ies. Shanghai, in this matter, does not recognize the existence of the word imposble; In that sprit the problem should be fa
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.