To, the Editor of the "NontH-CHINA Daty News."
'Sm,—Your leader this morning ws, "much which requires saying this time, and it is plain that a do sive for' sobriety of judgment informs the policy of tha "N.C.D.N." So be it. But without clarity of thinking no judgment of any sort is obtainable, ym that ground T venture to' your state. tment that in, the matter of "the dissemination of inflammatory Teaflets and posters the Jay right to look with Severity." The Jay Government has taken the she has vi the Counci League of Nations, and since then the situation has become what it is. 'She has every right to be anxio and if no League of Nations existed or she had no part in it, a syrups thetic supporter of her treaty pi vileges might' claim that she had a right to be severe, As it is, she has forfeited her right to severity.
Further, your leader makes the distinction' between "the natural expression of resentment" and "those patently provocative demon: trations, ote". I think the dist tion at this But it is misleading merely to mah such a statement 30 the one lier in the leader about motory appeals to youths would appear calculated to convey the impression that here and now Chinese feeling is expressing itself the same recklessness as it did in 1915 and: 1928 T venture to assert that this is not true, and to challenge any one in close' contact with Chinese opinion to prove I am wrong. There is indignation and zesontment, but the iron has gone deeper than any ebullitions off ¥aye or provocative demonstrations can satisfy or express: So we have 1915 and 1928 again but with a very vital difference.
I find the predominant psychology of the moment to be one of safer IRE date of judgment is native work, There' has been no sobriety of judgment is a ly occasion in recent years in which Chinese mass feeling has been 30 realistic in its sense of national weakness, no occasion on which this that has arisen, for.example, the entire freedom' with which' the Japanese in Shanghai have gone about their business and pleasure Jduring these days. In Hongkew the Japanese community lives cheek ith the Cantonese community—not the meckest in Ci—and yet children go to school, women to market, pleasure mongers roam the streets o'nights; and hardly a soul has been molested. So then, Japan has a right to be anxious.' She has no right to be severe.
Yet there is one right, commonly conceded. but of very dubious ethical force, which Japan is using the full. 'I refer to the right to show that whether she has blunder-fed or not she is not going to be ut upon by any one. To this the Chinese reply with the practical logic that they are not compelled to support Japanese industries. That faction may cause Japan anxiety, but the note of severity in her communications with the Chinese Government is only one of two or it is In either case there is no question of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.