Following the firing upon and sinking of some fishing junks in the vicinity of Hongkong the statements were made by the Japanese spokesmen, first, that it was not done by a Japanese submarine, and then later that the vessels which had been fred on carried small cannon and were, therefore, pirates, To a very great extent that second statement relieves the Court of Inquiry in $2] Hongkong of the responsibility of finding! whether or not a Japanese submarine was responsible and the only point which the vestigators have now to deal with is when ther the junks were pirate vessels. The evidence given in Hongkong by the victims: of this sudden onslaught at sea has about it the earmarks of truth. The witnesses, simple, seafaring men, have told their stories! with a moderation and absence of exaggeration which must of necessity carry convic~ tion. One witness when asked the nationality of the men operating the guns on the submarine says no more than that they] were not Europeans, Another frankly admits; having small cannon on board, had had them for four-years, and had fired them only once:
test when purchased. He had no rifles board, and it is clear from his testimony and the knowledge common to anyone acquainted with Hongkong that, for very many. years indeed, fishing junks plying out of that Port have with the consent of the authorities carried means of defending themselves' against the onslaughts of the pirates which have infested the coast for centuries past. It would have been quite impossible to carry' on the extensive fishing trade of Hongkong! without permitting the fishing junks to have! carried such weapons, That point disposed of it is clear from the evidence that the sinking of these vessels and the killing of members of the crews raises! another unhappy issue between Great Britain and Japan, for some of the junks, if not all, plied their business out of Hongkong, carried. Hongkong Government licences and numbers and were manned by crews of which some the members, having been born in the Colony, while of Chinese race, are undoubtedly British subjects. Some of the fortunate members of the fishing fleet attacked were able to cut! their nets away and escape, others were sunk. by shellfire while some of the casualties were caused either by machine-gunning, or from. drowning and exhaustion due to' exposure for some days before the survivors were picked up. The lamentable fact obtrudes throughout all the evidence which has come to hand that the officer commanding the submarine at no time appears to have done anything else than open fire without any preliminary investigation. The fact that there were junks about seems to have justi-fled him to his mind, in shooting without! any enquiry as to whether the crews were pirates or not. It has to be admitted at once that had investigation shown the crews to be of piratical bent, had they opened fire on the submarine, or committed any hostile act, there would have been some justification for the commander of the submarine acting as he did. Indeed he would have had plenty of precedent to have supported his decision; but, in the circumstances as revealed at the in-
Quiry it is not easy to discover any fact! which would serve to mitigate the criticism which has been levelled against the offending, submarine. 'That contention would equally' apply had the junks and crews been wholly of Chinese nationality. Attacks on noncombatants in any circumstances have to be roundly denounced, and in this connection it has {o be pointed out that the Japanese have repeatedly announced that they are! not warring on such, and indeed emphasiz~ ing their desire to avoid harming as much as! possible, That the acts of an isolated submarine should be so strangely at variance with offcial declarations is greatly to be deplored, for it suggests one of two things—cither that the word of Japanese authority does not run throughout the whole of its services, or that] it is saying one thing and meaning another. That latter is unbelievable for it has to be noted that the Japanese as a rule—though recently there have been unfortunate exceptions—are most punctilious in the observance of their engagements. It is, therefore, possible to believe that the officer responsible was acting without specific instructions or: was derelict in not first assuring himself the identity of the craft he had encountered. The findings of the Court of Enquiry have not yet been published; in view of the Japanese admission what its verdict will be seems to be clearly indicated. If as a result Great] Britain should find it necessary to add to the number of representations which have! already been made to Japan over incidents! arising out of this undeclared war, no great surprise need be felt. For Britain is solici~ tous for the welfare of her subjects and recognizes her responsibility towards them irrespective of race, and it is to be hoped that when diplomatic -action comes to be taken, Japan will show herself as ready to take appropriate steps as she has. shown herself in the past. By doing so she will help to mitigate the criticism to which she has been subjected so frequently during the last few months, and do something to relieve the feeling which incidents such as this must inevitably exacerbate,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.