The bomb incident on Soochow Creek on Monday has had exactly the repercussion which was to be expected, namely, that the Japanese should embark upon a line of criticism of the efforts of the (Municipal Police. To argue that because a crime occurred the Police are inefficient may sound very well but indicates incomplete realization of the functions of the force, It cannot be expected to anticipate that one person, out of some millions resident in Shanghai, plans to throw a bomb at a Japanese army sampan in Soochow Creek, and take steps accordingly. Could it be, it would have to be gifted with a degree of clairvoyance to which even the best of mediums never lays claim. It such things were possible much crime could be frustrated, That, however. the police are as human as any other person is evidenced by the fact that the Tokyo police did not anticipate the attempted coup of February last year, or, if they did, certainly took no steps to frustrate it. It may be thought that such an argument is but a mere tu quo que, but surely the respective merits of the two forces should be measured by the same yardstick, The efficiency displayed by the Municipal Police during the "Victory Parade," and the manner in which they have kept crime in hand during all these trying months redounds infinitely to their credit, and the Japanese authorities, if they: are correctly represented by their spokesman appear to be more than a trifle hypercritical, The claim made yesterday morning at the Press Conference that the Shanghai Municipal police on August 17 "took to their heels from the Eastern part of the Settlement" and so abandoned their posts, is definitely untrue, as the following excerpts from the issue of this journal dated August 21, clearly proves:—
The whole of the police force left in the eastern district is composed of volunteers. Some of the men are married, but they considered that their chief obligation was to keep-up the tradition of the Municipal Police of looking after any ratepayers' property irrespectively of inconvenience or cost to the men concerned. For six days the small and heroic band which have held on in the eastern district have been severed from their friends and families elsewhere. Every day and all night they have patrolled the streets in $.M.P. radio vans, so that they could send alarms to the appropriate quarters whenever they were needed. The only trouble was that the "appropriate quarters" were usually cut off from the central areas of the Settlement whenever the emergencies were really urgent During their time in the eastern siege, these policemen have had nothing more to eat than dry bread and bully beef. Their water supply was taken from the taps. In each sub-station there were about half a dozen British subjects, some of them Indians who elected to stand by their white comrades in the emergency, and have done sterling work.
It is not suggested for one moment that these misrepresentations are deliberate; they either rise from poor memory or an inadequate acquaintance with the facts. but, in a tense situation such as prevails, it is just as well to be certain of one's facts, before making statements which reflect on a brave body of men who carried on amidst a state of affairs which was none of their making. The members of the force, who did their duty so efficiently in so trying a time, deserve every commendation. and as this journal pointed out in the issue referred to, they continued to act "as custodians of the law in a district where the only law that reigns is that of death and destruction."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.