Speculations on the course of events in the North continue to attract lively attention throughout the world, so far as pre-occupations in Spair permit, Circumstantial reports of tentative efforts at mediation appear to be lightly conceived, Lord Cran-bourne's written answer in the House of Commons is but a slight peg on which to hang some of the pretentious theories advanced from London and elsewhere. Obviously at such a time there must be an interchange of diplomatic confidences. Yet it is dificult to perceive how possible intervention or mediation, whichever term is preferred, can be mooted in the same breath as a local settlement which, to judge from some interpretation, would make any third-party action superfluous. Whether there is a lull before the storm or whether the good sense of both principal will prevail to avert the folly of permitting an unpremeditated clash to assume catastrophic importance the events of the next few days shoud determine, Tt is unsatisfactory to note that Japanese opinion is being inflamed by apparently exaggerated and distorted versions of happenings in China, Chinese restraint is stil the most striking feature of the situation. Indeed General Chiang Kai-shek and his colleagues in the Government appear to be observing almost unprecedented tsciturnity, dignity and discretion, To picture China as deeply moved by events in the North may be fair. To describe that emotion as in any sense flamboyant or provocatively expressed is not only unfair; it is grossly untrue. No doubt China knows her own weakness, just as the observations of Japanese spokesmen speak emphatically of strength. The situation remains in obscurity despite the volubi which seems to have afflicted non-Chinese sources of enlightenment, That perhaps gives the best ground for hope that reasonable prudence will ultimately come to the rescue of both parties. The emphasis is laid on the epithet for the danger seems to lie in forgetting that reason is an ingredient essential to an honourable compromise. Without honour a compromise loses its chief virtue: the element of permanent acceptability,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.