The war sprite, having seared and harried the heart of Shanghai, recedes to continue his devil's tattoo further away. Shanghai has still to bear some of his importunities and cannot escape from the pressure of the iron embrace which keeps him off, Although they originally could not have expected to defend their lines round Shanghai for more than a fortnight or three weeks, Chinese cannot but feel despondent at the withdrawal now it has come. They may be heartened by the valour of their defence, by the knowledge that their soldiers have been steadfast enough to exact a high price for the invader's advance, even though their own losses have been terrible, but with the prospect of having to wait as the clash beyond unfolds itself, to revert to a drab sort of neutral reticence, they are experiencing emotions which should have the sympathy and respect of their fellow-citizens of all nationalities, Sympathy can do little in such a case, Yet it is fitting tnat at this difficult moment the Chinese people should know that a large section of the foreig population here and elsewhere in China is acutely distressed by their travail and sympathizes deeply in the sacrifices now being made for resistance to foreign aggression. When over 3,000,000 Chinese in the sixth city in the world are now temporarily cut off from direct and unrestrained contact with their government and country in a great national crisis, it is no moment to be critical, to hold political post mortem: an ounce of genuine sympathy and appreciation is worth a ton of counsel and admonition. Spiritual encouragement to the adoption of the stoical restraint which the national dignity demands may find therein its proper scope.
Shanghai, as a whole, naturally regards the present turn of events as marking a phase in its own difficulties, They are not likely to decrease even though the intensity of war's alarums may be disappearing. They will require development of a civic ce-operation which, at times, will pose awkward dilemmas personal and communal. In such a situation it is important that foreigners should recognize the obligations which they themselves incur in adjusting the daily routine to realities. A good deal of pains is being taken by some to justify the contention that Shanghai's woe is the direct outcome of the Chinese Government's decision to make this city the point of a main resistance to Japanese aggression. Ingenious manipulation of theories and facts is invoked to that end. Much play is made with ostensible legal assessments of the course of events. Japanese arguments that thi Shanghai "side-show" has sprung from Chinese perversity and breach of agreements find facile credence. Lest this line, of thought should be allowed to lead foreign opinion astray itis well here to reiterate certain broad considerations. Having by her actions in the North presented the Government and people of China with the choice of either acquiescing in further erosion of soil,*to the peril of national integrity, or plunging into a resistance to overwhelming military force, Japan cannot validly pretend that she has the right to criticize the consequences of the choice. That is the crux of the Shanghai problem as it stands to-day. Foreign emotion is necessarily all the more gravely stirred because the clash between the two principals has unfortunately, if undesignedly, dama vast neutral interests on which much of Shanghai's economic security This rests, point cannot be overlooked even if at the moment it cannot receive precise definition.
In due time the misfortunes of the tertius nex gardens here—the non-Japanese foreign community which has helplessly been forced to incur much risk to its life and property—must come up for consideration if there be any equity in the eventual solution of this momentous crisis in Shanghai's affairs—incidental though it be to the larger issue o Sino-Japanese relationships.
The view that hostilities should have been confined to the North actually seeks to establish the theory that, having taken up the Japanese challenge, China was wrong to choose a battleground other than that suitable to Japan. Shanghai, it is true, seemed to be covered by the agreement of May 1932, but, apart from the fact that that agreement was not ratified, it was not intended to be more than a provisional arrangement. Without accepting charges that the Chinese authorities breached the agreement by preparing means of defence against the evident possibilities of Japanese policy here and elsewhere—charges which are based on an almost unravellable tangle of facts, exaggerations ud fantasy—and without expounding in detail the frequently developed thesis that the breaches were not the monopoly of either side, it is sufficient to point out that, faced with an armed attack on her sovereignty, China was fully justified in striking where, having regard to all the' circumstances, she felt she could inflict an effective and, it might even be, a shattering blow to the invader. Whether into those calculations entered due consideration of the material losses invited by staging hostilities in this huge city the critic of the future must determine. Judgment on that point cannot be attempted until the final issue of the whole struggle from Canton to Peiping is ascertained. Just now, Shanghai has to steel itself to endurance of a period of great economic, political and social strain, Apprehension and pessimism are rife. As the encirclement of this city by an invading army is being completed let it be remembered that beyond that ring of steel, beyond Nanking itself, lies the great, pulsating mass of Chinese humanity and Chinese virility. Whatever woes may now seem so devastating that concrete fact remains. It is the earnest of China's ultimate recovery and release from alien domination. It is the guarantee to Shanghai that the essential needs of China must in due course again invest this city and Port with the responsibilities which go to furnish its prosperity and justify faith in its destiny as the commercial and financial ad-jurant to China's progress. Spiritually, too, the tale is the same: slaughter and destruction cannot destroy the soul of this great people; rather will they find it anew in the stress of a common affliction and so exorcise the errors which may have weighed upon them. Specially appropriate, on this day hallowed to the memory of the Republic's Founder, is that definition of foreign sympathy as it ministers to China's solace in a grim hour.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.