London, Oct. 28, The Japanese will presumably strain every nerve to turn this local and deliberate) retreat Into a general rout, declares "The Times" in a leading article to-day on the latest phase of the fighting in Shanghat.
The territorial gains are of Mule moment to them, save in so far os they will further their prime and only objective—the destruction of the Chinese armies as an effective Aghting Thus far they have made little headway towards this objective, "The Times" asserts. They have, indeed, killed 200,000 or 300,000 Chinese soldfers, among them many of the best under Nanking's command, but their ten bloody weeks at Shanghai (even ifthe struggle there is not further prolonged, which seems an unlikely contingency) may one day be proved fo have laid the foundations of a military strength such as China never tory the Chinese soldier has emerged from the mists of facetious legend. He is stil, for the most part, under trained and under-armed and still—because he cannot afford a waterproof coat—earries an umbrella, but he held for ten weeks ground which he was expected to lose in one and the has given way only under a bombardment which might well" have dislodged any modern infantry under similar conditions. Not only to-day but in' the future the resistance at Shanghai will have its moral effect all over China.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.