Sept. 12.
The effort to organise British opinion in Shanghai by the creation of a British association on comprehensive lines deserves attefition. There are hopes that)
implies an endeavour of greater scope than discussion of the Feetham Report which was specifically in mind when th idea was first casually mooted in, these columns. It should not be satisfied with a self-protection or communal programme to the exclusion of all other aims. Too great an insistence on communal representation reids to defeat itself, The communal candidate is apt to bid for support because of his vehemence in championing communal interests. This weakens his position when matters of great importance but of general rather than communal interest require his attention. While, therefore, an association might usefully develop discussion of policy and, even, help to frame policy, it should carefully consider whether its work could not be better performed without adding to it the functions of an electoral college. It could guide its electors rather than bind them. There is a great field for such an association. The British community in Shanghai is not unmindful of the rapidity of the changes in the currents present political thought. No national association here can exist without adopting a conductive policy. The idea that it can be used to hammer home nothing but destructive criticism would be rejected at once by any one seriously attempting to bring such an organisation into being. There is, indeed, in the British community a strong, if not very vocal, desire to look to. the future rather than entrench itself uselessly in the past, Leadership is wanted. It is at times a source of deep regret to many that so little signs of such leadership are forthcoming. The result is that British opinion is often misrepresented and, worse still, is s0_ often capable of misinterpretation. It amazing, imes, to find how loud are some declarations of alleged policy and how small fs the esteem secured for them when whatever test is available is applied. The reasons are recognised. "There is little facility for ensuring free and frank dis~ cussion of the political, social and industrial questions of the day in Shanghai. There is a tendency to pay undue regard to the imagined solidarity of. the unreceptive mind. The peculiar conditions under which a foreign community lives away from its homeland, naturally put a premium on' what passes for orthodoxy. Healthy heterodoxy is too little encouraged. Then too the close interdependence of interests within the community tends to stifle the expression of views which appear to be unusual, In plain words there is a great need for leadership. The honourable part played by the British in China and in the development of Shanghai makes it unthinkable that in the future, which lies not so very far ahead, they will have no lot. "Younger members of the community, eager to win their spurs, do not believe that they have been brought out under false pretences to a blind alley occupation. Nor do they believe that, under changed conditions—difficult, novel and strange—they will be less able than their predecessors to earn the goodwill and confidence of their feilowresidents here. These young men fare not prepared to take as gospel the jeremiads which find so much currency in between vague dise ions of the de-|p merits of all other races on the face of the earth. They ¢o not despise experience and knowledge; they know that both are essential to the wise guidance of the community. They ask simply for a leadership which rejects defeatism and diehardism alike. They believe that it can be obtained and they are prepared to help in any organisation likely to produce it.
Leaders do not spring on! of the ground. They come when a community shows itself capable of formulating policy and standing behind it. Now, when British policy in regard to the Feetham Report and the consequent
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.