Much importance will be attached to the publication in Japan of the pamphlet entitled "Plea for Peace and Conciliation," apparently written by a friend of the Japanese Premier, Prince Fumimaro Konnoe and distributed amongst foreign correspondents with the for's compliments. The general circumstances of the publication and distribution of the pamphlet suggests that it represents a point of view, which if not officially held, has at least the endorsement of. the Prime' Minister, Little exception can be taken to much of the cabled exeerpls which have reached Shanghai, thotigh it may be pointed out that insistence on the point that Japan is really Aghting Soviet in-Auences in China, as a religious State against a godless one, is more than a little ingenuous. That it might serve for home consumption only too true, but the world at large will re~ gard the suggestions made in the light of China's history during the last ten years. That the Kuomintang did take advantage of Russian ussistanee and advice when its forces swept northward to subjugate the whole country is perfectly true, and to that extent it may "be conceded that the Kuomintang did play with the Soviet fire; but then it must also be remembered that after Hankow was reached Borodin and his assistants were soon sent about their business, while in subsequent years one of the main concerns of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek was the extirpation of communism which had undoubtedly obtained a hold on the imagination of many of the south-fern Chinese during the march northward, The many years of campaign ayainst the Commun-{sts are sull a vivid memory, too vivid to permit of such contentions as the one quoted above obtaining any very great notice. save that of Ineredulity
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.